At 8 A.M. General Carter-Campbell took over command of the sector.
At 10 A.M. reports were received at Divisional headquarters that the enemy were withdrawing on the front of the 49th Division on the right, and that their brigades were moving forward without waiting for the artillery barrage. No reports could, however, be obtained on the Divisional front that the enemy had withdrawn there; it was in consequence decided that the attack should be carried out as originally planned.
Accordingly at 12 noon the infantry advanced, preceded by a creeping barrage fired by six brigades of field artillery. It, however, quickly transpired that the attack had coincided with an enemy withdrawal, and the prescribed objective was reached with little opposition. On the extreme right the 5th Seaforth Highlanders had some fighting in clearing Avesnes le Sec; while on the left, on crossing the spur facing Lieu St Amand, the 4th Seaforth Highlanders came under heavy fire from that village, but managed in spite of it to establish themselves on the forward slope.
By 1.30 P.M. the objective was gained on the whole Divisional front.
It had been previously arranged that if success attended these operations the 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, accompanied by a mobile 18-pounder section under the command of Lieutenant J. Gillespie of “A” Battery, 256th Brigade, should pass through the 4th Seaforth Highlanders and if possible occupy Lieu St Amand and the station at Pavé de Valenciennes, situated close to the junction of the railway and the Valenciennes-Cambrai road near Lieu St Amand.
Accordingly, as soon as the protective barrage that was covering the 4th Seaforth Highlanders had ceased, two companies of the 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders continued the advance. Though at first under fairly heavy hostile artillery barrage, they moved rapidly forward until on a line about 150 yards from the southernmost houses of the village. Here, faced by the enemy, who appeared to have established a firm line all along the front, they came under a heavy burst of machine-gun fire which first checked their pace, and, finally, as the German machine-gunners began to get on to their targets, brought the general advance to a standstill.
The 18-pounder section at once came into action in the open, and silenced many of the machine-guns; but the guns hidden amongst the houses could not be located, and so could not be effectively bombarded. While searching for these guns, a German 8-inch howitzer battery got on to the 18-pounder section, and shelled it so effectively that it was forced to withdraw temporarily.
The 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, however, did not give up their attempts to reach the village, and each platoon endeavoured to work its way forward. One of them, from a point 200 yards from the south-west corner of the village, crawled forward between the furrows of a newly-ploughed field until within twenty-five yards of two machine-guns which were firing from behind a bank.
Unfortunately, just at the moment when the sections were about to rise and rush this post, a burst of enfilade machine-gun fire from the railway caught them. Swept by the bullets from this gun, they were unable to rise from the furrows, and movement forwards, rearwards, or to the flank became impossible. In this position they remained until an hour or so later. About 4 P.M. the men were able to dribble back to cover singly.