PLAN illustrating the Capture of THIEPVAL,
September 26th, October 5th, 1916.
Every possible preparation was made for the assault, and all the requirements of prolonged warfare were used to minimise the losses and ensure the success of the storm-troops. Four tanks were brought up to co-operate, and one of them, as will be shown, was of vital use at a critical moment. Instructions were given to the advancing battalions to let their own shrapnel strike within a few yards of their toes as they advanced, huddling in a thick line behind the screen of falling bullets which beat down the machine-guns in front. With fine judgment in some cases the supports were taken out of the advanced trenches and concealed here or there so that the answering barrage of the enemy fell upon emptiness. So war-wise were the British, and so cool their dispositions, that certain enemy trenches were actually exempted from bombardment, so that they might form an intact nucleus of defence when the place was taken.
The Canadian Corps were to attack from Courcelette upon the right, but their advance was only indirectly concerned with Thiepval Village, being directed towards the ridge which runs north-west of Courcelette to the Schwaben Redoubt. Next to the Canadians on the left was the Eleventh Division, and on their left the Thirteenth, which had been strengthened by the addition of the 146th Brigade of the Forty-ninth Division. The latter brigade held the original British front line during the action so as to release the whole of the Eighteenth Division for the advance. The immediate objective of this division was Thiepval Village, to be followed by the Schwaben Redoubt. Those of the Eleventh Division on its right were Zollern and Stuff Redoubts.
The Eighteenth Division assaulted with two brigades, the 53rd on the right, the 54th on the left, each being confronted by a network of trenches backed by portions of the shattered village. The advance was from south to north, and at right angles to the original British trench line. The hour of fate was 12.35 in the afternoon of September 26.
The average breadth of No Man's Land was 250 yards, which was crossed by these steady troops at a slow, plodding walk, the pace being regulated by the searching barrage, which lingered over every shell-hole in front of them. Through the hard work of the sappers and Sussex pioneers, the assembly trenches had been pushed well out, otherwise the task would have been more formidable.