Albert is about eighteen miles north-east of Amiens by a straight road through Pont Noyelles, which continues to Bapaume, eleven miles farther. On the high ground between the Ancre and the Albert-Bapaume road stood Thiepval and the German redoubts, and on the Bapaume road itself Pozières, Courcelette, and Warlencourt.
In the angle between the Albert-Bapaume road and the northern bank of the Somme every village and every wood became part of a tragic history—Mametz, Contalmaison, Longueval, Guillemont, Combles, with Trones Wood, Delville Wood, and the others. South of the Somme and between the river and the road lie Hamel and Chuignes, while on the main road itself, east of Villers Bretonneux, once stood the villages of Warfusée (Lamotte), Estrées, Villers Carbonnel, and others, while the town of Péronne—protected by Mont St. Quentin on the north and by the Somme and a tributary on the other three sides—lies just at the bend. South of the road and in the triangle between it and the Avre lie the uplands on which, very generally, the French were fighting to the right (south) of the British, and in which the village names are therefore less familiar to us than those farther north.
The first battle of the Somme commenced on the 1st of July, 1916, and lasted, with more or less quiescent intervals, until the late autumn. British and French were fighting side by side—the British on the northern half, from the Upper Ancre to the Albert-Péronne road; the French to their right, facing Péronne, crossing the Somme, and extending southward as far as Chaulnes.
The German defences in the north, which had been under construction for more than a year, were enormously strong, the "first line" alone being a maze of trenches half a mile wide.
Their position stretched southward from below Arras to Gommécourt, and covered Beaumont-Hamel and the heights east of the Ancre valley, crossed the Albert-Bapaume road two miles north of Albert, passed eastwards through Fricourt, crossed the Somme some miles short of Péronne, and then ran southwards west of Chaulnes. The story of the fighting, both French and British, as it can be read even in Lord Haig's official despatches, and still more in the unofficial accounts, is a continuous record of episodes every one of which would have been called Homeric in any other war, but which in this gigantic struggle seem to have become ordinary events. The ordinary civilian of common life from workshop or warehouse or office or studio turned out to be in essence exactly the same being as the noble and adventurous heroes of the stories and histories of our youth. And while he would grumble seriously about his baths or his meat or his shaving facilities, he would yet go into action cheerfully without hesitation, although he knew well enough the horror of his own work and the great chance that he might never return.
The village of Mametz ([Plate 53]), like nearly all the villages in "the Somme," has disappeared; it was among those taken by the British on the first day of the battle. It was in this attack that East Surrey men are said to have gone forward dribbling footballs, some of which they recovered in German trenches, in front of them.[22]
The French on our right got within a mile or two of Péronne, but its defences were too strong and it was not actually captured until 1918.
Trones Wood ([Plate 54]) was cleared early in July. Here a small body of 170 men of the Royal West Kents and Queens[23] held out all night, completely surrounded, until relieved the next morning. Delville Wood ([Plate 55]) was captured the next day. The fighting in these woods has left nothing of them but churned-up ground and a few bare stems, although the rank undergrowth makes some of them appear quite green from a distance. Combles ([Plate 56]) was not taken until the 26th of September, when the British and French entered the town simultaneously (from the north and the south respectively), and captured a company which had not been able to get clear away in time. The little town is not so entirely wrecked as many other places, but the house which is shown under reconstruction in the photograph is perhaps one of the least damaged.
Thiepval and the redoubts on the Thiepval plateau were not finally secured until November. The Germans had said beforehand that we "would bite granite" in trying to take them. We did bite granite, but our teeth proved the harder.