* * * * * * *
The battle, however, still raged. Sir Douglas Haig was pushing the enemy hard:
“The success of the Fourth Army had now brought our advance to a stage at which I judged it advisable that Thiepval should be taken, in order to bring our left flank into line and establish it on the main ridge above that village, the possession of which would be of considerable value in future operations.
Accordingly, at 12.25 p.m. on the 26th September, before the enemy had been given time to recover from the blow struck by the Fourth Army, a general attack was launched against Thiepval and the Thiepval Ridge.... The attack was a brilliant success. On the right our troops reached the system of enemy trenches which formed their objective without great
difficulty. In Thiepval and the strong works to the north of it the enemy’s resistance was more desperate.... On the left of the attack fierce fighting, in which Tanks again gave valuable assistance to our troops, continued in Thiepval during the day and the following night, but by 8.30 a.m. on the 27th September the whole of the village of Thiepval was in our hands.”
The rest for the division, however, was not for very long. Reinforced, though hardly refreshed, the brigades began to move back to the line. On the 29th September the 167th Brigade was in Trones Wood, west of Guillemont, and the 169th in a camp near by. On the last night of September the latter brigade took over the line from the 6th Division, with the right in touch with the French, while the 167th relieved the 2nd Guards Brigade on the left.
The position taken over was outside Les Bœufs, in the trenches called Foggy and Windy. Battalions in line from the right were the Queen’s Westminsters, Queen Victoria’s, 1st Londons, and the 7th Middlesex. The orders were that they should send out patrols and occupy a line of posts over the crest of the ridge—the 169th Brigade posts A, B, C, D, and the 167th Brigade E, F, G, H, and K.
On October 2nd the 167th Brigade reported having joined up a line of posts, but we cannot make the map-readings given agree with what is known of positions in subsequent events. The country was more than ever devoid of landmarks—it was just a wide expanse of shell-holes in a dark brown, almost black, kind of earth—and no one knew either their own position or those of the enemy within a few hundred yards; and the few hundred yards were
a matter of importance. Anyhow, the line was not the line of posts, but probably near the line we have sketched on the left of 34. Touch was obtained with the 20th Division on the left.
Gen. Hull was now instructed that the Fourth Army would renew the attack on the 5th October, and that the XIV Corps would establish itself on a line from which the main Transloy defences could be attacked at a later date. The 56th Division would capture Hazy, Dewdrop, Spectrum, and part of Rainbow, and establish a line along the west crest of the ridge; the Division would then, as a second phase of the attack, establish a line on the forward slope of the ridge from which Le Transloy could be seen. The General ordered that the 169th Brigade should attack on the right, and the 167th Brigade on the left. [The battle of the Transloy Ridges, 1st-18th October.]