The Struggle on The Western Front

September 1916 was a critical month for the French and British armies, including their commonwealth and colonial forces, along the Western Front during #WW1. In particular, both the Canadian Corps and New Zealand Division would finally see action at the Somme in the upcoming weeks when the Battle of Flers-Courcelette would be launched - as would tanks for the first time in history - and in the skies above, the Germans seriously challenged the Allies' recently gained air supremacy with the introduction of their Albatross D.I fighter squadron.

However, waging a war on numerous fronts, September proved to be very critical for German commanders as well. In defending their lines along the Somme they lost about 130,000 casualties - the most costly month of the battle - and combined with the losses at Verdun and on the Eastern Front, Germany was brought closer to military collapse than at any time before the autumn of 1918.

One hundred years ago, the Allies were preparing the third stage of their Somme Offensive, still seeking a decisive victory. The plan was to sweep right and pivot left. Sadly, the plan failed, but there were tactical successes, such as capturing High Wood, Bazentin Ridge (beyond the towns of Flers and Courcelette), a position won which enabled the British Fourth Army to see the rear-slope defences, and the Quadrilateral.

In the weeks leading up to the battle, in order to achieve success, British General Douglas Haig hoped a sizeable number of tanks would be ready, as would their trained crews, and he hoped the Germans would continue to pull troops from the west to the east, due to the pressure of the Brusilov Offensive being conducted with great effect by Russia's armies. Under the terms of the Chantilly Agreement of December 1915, it was launched on 4 June 1916 and took place until late September in western Ukraine.

General Brusilov's operation achieved its original goal of forcing Germany to halt its attack on Verdun and transfer considerable forces to the Eastern Front, while also actually breaking the Austro-Hungarian army. The numbers are staggering: within several months Austria-Hungary lost over 567,000 casualties and 408,000 soldiers as prisoners. The Russians lost 440,000 men, and an additional 60,000 were captured, and the German Empire suffered 350,000 dead and wounded.

Aware of the consequences upon the Western Front of the large-scale deployment of troops, Germany was relying on Hindenburg's new tactical instructions outlined in "The Defensive Battle", to wear out the enemy while conserving German infantry by efficiently replacing manpower by machine-generated firepower. This practice certainly nullified Anglo-French advances and marked the beginning of modern warfare tactics and enabled the German's to build a new defensive system miles behind the Noyon Salient (which became known as the Hindenburg Line) to make possible a strategic withdrawal, if necessary.

With the launch of the Somme Offensive in July, the Germans were under constant observation from both aircraft and balloons, and the Allies fired tons of artillery shells accurately onto their positions, annihilating German artillery, and enabling aircraft to attack infantry from very low altitudes daily - causing severe anxiety among German troops, who reportedly came to believe that Anglo-French aircraft were armoured.

The French Tenth Army attacked south of the Somme on 4 September, adding to the pressure on the German defence, which had been depleted by the fighting north of the Somme since July. Meanwhile, the British Fourth Army had launched an attack on 3 September, which lasted three days with the eventual capture of heavily-fortified Guillemont, and an important junction between French and British forces.

Attempts to co-ordinate joint attacks failed due to the quick recovery of the German 2nd Army, and from the disorganisation caused by the early defeats (and loss of officers), not to mention disagreements over tactics by Haig and Joffre, and simply the organisational constraints caused by congestion behind the front, as well as obliterated roads and tracks becoming swamps when it rained, adding to the logistical problem of an unreliable supply of machinery, guns and ammunition, which reduced the effectiveness of the advancing army.

On 18 August Guillemont had been reached by the 2nd Division, but not until 3 September was the village captured and cleared by the 20th (Light) and part of the 16th (Irish) Divisions. As a sidenote to the back and forth nature of the war - and the cost to capture small pieces of land - Guillemont was again lost to the Germans in March 1918, but finally retaken on 29 August by the 18th and 38th (Welsh) Divisions.

By early September, after 60 days of fighting, 32 British divisions had been engaged and had lost 126,000 men; yet were now bogged down, having advanced at most 1,500 yards across a 12,000-yard front. The deeper advance at Guillemont, and the successful capture of the town, had occurred at the end of the period. But a century ago it was this pivotal moment, when Guillemont fell, causing a severe blow to German morale; that Hindenburg and Ludendorff ended the policy of defending ground at all costs on 5 September, and implemented the Defensive Battle.

Among those who would give his life, making the supreme sacrifice, was Lieutenant Raymond Asquith, 3rd Bn Grenadier Guards, who at the outset of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette was killed on 15 September 1916, aged 37. He was the son of the Rt Hon (and former MP) Herbert Asquith, PC, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1908-1916, now 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG.

Lt Asquith rests today at the Guillemont Road Cemetary and it is solemnly marked on his gravestone :

Small time, but in that small
Most greatly lived
This star of England

He was a barrister and scholar of high intellect and had been President of the Union at Oxford, won the Craven, Derby and Ireland Scholarships, a First in Greats and a Fellowship at All Souls.

Lest we forget.