The Capture of Contalmaison was a tactical incident of the Battle of Albert. Contalmaison is a commune in the Somme department in Picardy in northern France. The village is north-east of Albert on the D 104, north-west of Mametz Wood and south of Pozières, at the junction of several roads, atop a spur with a good view in all directions. In 1914, there was a church and a château just to the north, a chalk pit nearby and 72 houses, making it the seventh-largest village on the Somme. Military operations in the area began when the German XIV Reserve Corps advanced down the Bapaume–Albert road and Contalmaison was captured at noon on 28 September, by Reserve Infantry Regiment 40 (RIR 40) and RIR 110 of the 28th Reserve Division which took 20 prisoners for a loss of three men killed and 21 wounded.
In 1916, the village was between the German first and second positions, each having three trenches about apart, behind deep fields of barbed wire. The village was ringed by a dense network of trenches and barbed-wire obstacles, with a commanding view of the vicinity. On 1 July, the First day on the Somme a small party from the 34th Division got within of the village. Rear-area troops were scraped up to counter-attack them and pushed the party back from the (Readiness Trench) to the (Pioneer Trench). The 34th Division lost 6,380 men, the highest number of casualties of any division involved in the attack. Operations to capture Contalmaison continued until the village was captured, with fresh divisions from 2 to 10 July; the British were able to close up to the German second position, ready for the Battle of Bazentin Ridge (14–17 July).
The capture of the village cost the British about 12,000 more casualties and the commander of the 17th (Northern) Division was sacked. The attacks forced the Germans into a costly piecemeal defence and many losses were inflicted on the 17 regiments that contributed men for the defence of Contalmaison and the vicinity; Infantry Regiment Lehr was almost annihilated. The German policy of resolute defence and counter-attack exposed many German units to British firepower and by 10 July, German casualties on the Somme had risen to 40,197 men. The village became a backwater until 25 March 1918, when the 79th Reserve and 183rd divisions re-captured it during Operation Michael, the German spring offensive. The village changed hands for the last time when it was taken by the 113th Brigade of the 38th (Welsh) Division on 25 August, during the Second Battle of Bapaume.
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Background.
1914.
Contalmaison village is north-east of Albert on the D 104, north-west of Mametz Wood, to the south of Pozières between Longueval and La Boisselle, at the junction of several roads, atop a spur with a good view in all directions. In 1914, there was a church and a château just to the north, a chalk pit nearby and 72 houses, the seventh-largest village on the Somme. The XIV Reserve Corps ( [Lieutenant-General] Richard von Schubert then Hermann von Stein from 14 September) began operations west of Bapaume in late September by advancing down the Bapaume–Albert road to the Ancre river, preparatory to an advance down the Somme valley to Amiens. On 28 September, Reserve Infantry Regiment 40 (RIR 40) and RIR 110 of the 28th Reserve Division advanced towards Contalmaison, where French infantry were dug in. By 11:00 a.m. the hill to the north was captured in a costly attack and 20 prisoners taken and the village was captured by noon, with three men killed and 21 wounded.
On 29 September, the attack of the XIV Reserve Corps was stopped by the French around Fricourt and La Boisselle, south of Ovillers. In early November, French artillery reinforcements arrived and bombardments beyond the front line began. On 19 November, two divisions of XI Corps attacked to fix German troops but were repulsed and on 28 November, an attack by the XIV Corps managed to advance the French line by . In early December, IV Corps attacked and gained . The French attacks had been costly and gained little ground; after the end of the Battle of Albert the area round Contalmaison became a backwater except for occasional artillery bombardments into 1916.
1915.
In January 1915, General Erich von Falkenhayn, head of (OHL, German General Staff) ordered the construction of a systematic defensive system on the Western Front, capable of withstanding attacks indefinitely, with a relatively small garrison. Barbed wire obstacles were enlarged from one belt wide to two belts wide and about apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid high. The front line was increased from one trench to three, dug apart, the first trench () to be occupied by sentry groups, the second () for the front-trench 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 made large enough for 25 men. An intermediate line of strong points () about behind the front line was also built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve line, renamed the second line, which was as well built and wired as the first line. The second line was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop and move artillery forward before assaulting the line.
In mid-July 1915, extensive troop and artillery movements north of the Ancre were seen by German observers. The type of shell fired by the new artillery changed from high explosive to shrapnel and unexploded shells were found to be of a different design. The new infantry opposite, did not continue the live-and-let-live practices of their forerunners and a larger number of machine-guns began firing against the German lines, which did not pause every 25 shots, like French Hotchkiss machine guns. German troops were reluctant to believe that the British had assembled an army large enough to extend as far south as the Somme and a soldier seen near Thiepval, was thought to be a French soldier in a grey hat. By 4 August, it was officially reported by OHL that the 52nd Division and the 26th Reserve Division had seen a man in "a brown suit"; on 9 August, the situation became clear when a British soldier, working in no man's land, got lost in a mist and was captured.
1916.
After the Second Battle of Champagne (Autumn Battle 25 September – 6 November 1915), a third defence line another back from the was begun in February and was nearly complete on the Somme front when the battle began. German artillery was organised in a series of (barrage sectors); each officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries to be 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 concentration of troops in 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. Digging and wiring of a new third line began in May, civilians were moved away and stocks of ammunition and hand-grenades were increased in the front-line. On 6 June, Below reported that air reconnaissance indicated an offensive at Fricourt and Gommecourt.
First day on the Somme.
III Corps plan.
In the III Corps area, heavy artillery was to fire on the German defences in eight lifts and "jump" from one defence line to the next and the infantry advance was to be preceded by barrages which moved back slowly on a timetable. The sixth lift was to fall on a line behind Contalmaison and Pozières, 85 minutes after zero hour and the eighth lift was to fall beyond after 22 minutes, a procession into the German defences of in 107 minutes. The field artillery barrage was to move very slowly, raking back to the next German trench line in lifts of but faster than the infantry advance, so was not a true creeping barrage. On 28 June, the Fourth Army headquarters ordered that if the initial attacks caused the German defence to collapse, the closest infantry would exploit without waiting for cavalry of the Reserve Army (Lieutenant-General Hubert Gough), which would be west of Albert, ready to advance once the roads had been cleared.
On the right flank of III Corps, the 34th Division, was to capture the German positions from the Fricourt Spur and Sausage Valley to the far side of La Boisselle, then advance to a line about short of the German second line from Contalmaison to Pozières. The division would have to capture a fortified village and six German trench lines, in a advance on a front. The 19th (Western) Division (19th (Western) Division) in corps reserve was to move forward to the vacant trenches in the Tara–Usna line, ready to relieve the attacking divisions, after the objectives had been reached. If the German defences collapsed the 19th (Western) Division and 49th (West Riding) Division in reserve, were to advance either side of the Albert–Bapaume road under the command of the Reserve Army.
Two columns on the right flank were to be formed by the 101st Brigade (Brigadier-General Robert Gore) with one battalion leading and a supporting battalion behind, followed by a battalion detached from the 103rd (Tyneside Irish) Brigade (Brigadier-General N. J. G. Cameron). The two columns on the left flank were from the 102nd (Tyneside Scottish) Brigade (Brigadier-General Trevor Tiernan) and the remaining two battalions of the 103rd Brigade were to follow the columns. The first objective of the two leading lines of battalions was the German front system of four trench lines, the fourth trench being about from the British front line and to be reached at 8:18 a.m., 48 minutes after zero hour. The second objective was the German second intermediate line () just short of Contalmaison and Pozières, to be reached at 8:58 a.m., where the 101st and 102nd brigades were to dig in. The 103rd Brigade was then to pass through and reach the final objective on the far side of Contalmaison and Pozières at 10:10 a.m. and consolidate, ready to attack the German second position further on.
1 July.
At 7:30 a.m. on 1 July, the infantry of the 34th Division rose from their jumping-off trenches. Within ten minutes, 80 per cent of the men in the leading battalions had become casualties from German machine-gun fire, which began as soon as the British bombardment lifted off the German front line. Many of the German machine-guns were in concealed positions behind the front line had not been hit by the bombardment. As soon as the advance of the head of an attacking column was stopped, the rest of the column bunched up and made an easy target. The right-hand column had to advance along the convex slope on the west side of Fricourt Spur, for which the leading companies of the 15th (Service) Battalion (1st Edinburgh), The Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) (15th Royal Scots) had advanced to within of the German front line before zero hour.
When the barrage lifted, the troops overran the German front trench on the higher part of the slope but German flanking fire from Sausage Valley and La Boisselle forced the leading companies on the right eastwards. Parties of the 15th Royal Scots were left behind to attack at Sausage Redoubt and the rest advanced straight up the slope, straying into the 21st Division sector in the XV Corps area on the right. By 7:48 a.m. both battalions were atop the Fricourt Spur but Sausage and Scots redoubts were still occupied by German troops. The infantry continued for about to Birch Tree Wood, before the error in navigation was realised after thirty minutes. The British advance had overrun the junction of Reserve Infantry Regiment 110 and Reserve Infantry Regiment 111 (RIR 111) and got into , separating two infantry companies; some parties reached the , further on. The battalions then turned north, the 15th Royal Scots up Birch Tree Trench in the second intermediate line, towards Peake Woods, with the 16th Royal Scots in support along the Fricourt–Pozières road, behind.
A company of the reserve battalion of RIR 110 counter-attacked from Peake