I have included in the guide a car route around the villages to the rear of the British and German positions which housed many of the units involved in the fighting at Beaumont Hamel, when they were at rest or preparing for their part in the battle. I have taken Hamel as a start point.
See Map 13
This journey will take some time, of course much depending on how many stops are made en route, and a morning or an afternoon should be allowed for. It is a pleasant drive in its own right, and takes you through a quiet and unspoilt part of the Somme countryside.
Both views from near the top of Jacob’s Ladder, just outside Mesnil. The top view over to the east includes the Ulster Tower, which may be just seen on the skyline, in the trees, to right of centre.
The bottom view shows Thiepval and the site of the Leipzig redoubt, a German 1 July strongpoint, readily identified by the clump of the trees on the horizon to the right of the photograph.
From here make for Mesnil Martinsart; this can be done in one of two ways: either take the road to the south out of Hamel and take the turning to the right, just beyond Hamel Military Cemetery; or, for the more adventurous, take the road from Hamel to Auchonvillers. Just as the trees of the Newfoundland Park start on your right (the track there leads to the Superintendant’s house and goes on to Y Ravine cemetery), there is a narrow road heading south. Its surface is not good but my car has made the trip in the past. This route connects eventually with the direct Hamel-Mesnil road; just before it does this, on the left, was where the communications trench, Jacob’s Ladder, ran down the side of the ridge towards Hamel. If it is convenient (ie if one of the numerous tractors does not put in an appearance) look across the Ancre towards the Ulster Tower. This ridge was of vital importance for their artillery spotters and for their staff observing the progress of the battle.
Mesnil War memorial: The Departure … The Return.
Once in Mesnil take the turning by the church to the right; the village war memorial nearby is worthy of closer examination, with two plaques depicting the scene of a Poilu departing for war and his return at the end of it. Mesnil itself was full of troops coming in and out of the line, as well as a dump for all sorts of supplies. Keep on the road to Auchonvillers; several hundred yards before it comes to a T Junction there is a British observation bunker on the left hand side of the road. You need to keep your eyes peeled for it, as it is set not very high above the ground. Good views must have been available here, but shrubs and trees seem to have obscured most of them. On the right of the road one can imagine troops making their way towards communication trenches such as Tipperary Avenue — they would have been ordered off the roads by now because of the dangers of shelling, and in any case the road surface was needed for the transports.
British observation bunker on the Mesnil to Auchonvillers road; the Thiepval memorial may be seen to the left centre of the photograph, through the line of trees.
At the T Junction turn left towards Vitermont and Englebelmer. Vitermont took its turn as a Brigade Headquarters, and some of the heavy artillery engaged in the preliminary bombardment for the Somme was situated around Englebelmer. Turn right just before entering the villages and head for Mailly Maillet, a large village with broad streets. Mailly Maillet and Englebelmer were the other two Somme villages besides Beaumont Hamel that Winchester adopted after the war. At a road junction you will find the church, on the right hand side. During the war the local parish priest had the facade of the west door covered in sandbags to protect it from shell fire, and thus it is a miraculous fifteenth century survival, with its beautiful carvings. Pollution would appear to be a greater threat than the enemy’s shellfire.
At the junction turn left, passing a walled wooded area on your left. Immediately at the end of this there is a sign to Mailly Wood Cemetery. This is worth a detour. The track is fine until it turns to the right to the cemetery; my advice would be to walk from here. In these fields there would have been encampments housing the troops. The cemetery itself is full of many of the casualties of the Highland Division — serried ranks of them.
Mailly Wood cemetery, with serried ranks of Highland Division casualties from their attck in November 1916.
Returning to the road turn left and within half a kilometre or so take a right fork to Beaussart and Bertrancourt. Here take the road to Acheux, but just as you come out of the village take a right turn (which has a CWGC signpost to Bertrancourt Military Cemetery). The cemetery is at the end of a long grass path on the left hand side of the road, so it is necessary to be alert — one can drive past it, and the last time I visited the final (and vital!) CWGC sign was languishing in a ditch and almost completely covered by branches and vegetation.
Bertrancourt Cemetery on the left, Acheux Wood in the distance.
The cemetery was used by Dressing Stations which were in the adjacent fields during the Somme battle. Standing at the end of the cemetery, looking towards Acheux, gives a view across the fields where many of the rehearsals were done by units preparing for the various attacks in the Beaumont Hamel area. Like many of these Somme villages, Bertrancourt’s larger houses would have been commandeered for various HQs — for example 4 Division and 12 Division had their headquarters here at various times during the Somme battle
Returning on the road towards Acheux, the great bulk of Acheux Wood appears on the left hand side. It was in here that the tanks were brought in the preparations for the Battle of the Ancre, by means of the railway which ran around its south eastern side and the line of which may still be traced today. The wood would have provided cover for the tanks from prying German airmen’s view. Also in Acheux, but tucked well out of prying eyes, is the chateau which housed 29th Division HQ (and its Casualty Clearing Station) in its time on the Beaumont Hamel sector. It was to Acheux that the remnants of 1/Lancashire Fusiliers returned on July 4th. In Acheux head towards Herrisart (on the D114); after about five hundred yards there is a sign indicating Acheux British Cemetery. It is tucked well back from the road, on the right hand side, and is rarely visited. There are three casualties from the 6/Dorset raid of June 1918 buried here. The ground in this vicinity would seem to provide some similarity to that around Beaumont Hamel, and may well have been used in the pre-push preparations.
The rarely visited Acheux British cemetery. Rehearsals for the 1 July attack took place on the ridged ground beyond the cemetery.
Continuing along the D114, turn right in due course for Louvencourt; this was the home for the months preceding July 1st for the Newfoundland Regiment. Before reaching the village, Louvencourt Military Cemetery will be found on the right. There are very unusual (and very impressive) French headstones here, but most visitors come to pay tribute to Brigadier General C Prowse, killed on July 1st at the Quadrilateral, now the site of Serre Road Cemetery No. 2. Also buried here is Roland Leighton, who figures prominently in Vera Britten’s Testament of Youth. He was sniped in the trenches close to the present site of Touvent Farm, to the north west of Serre.
Louvencourt was the site chosen as a reserve area for the 88th Brigade, the reserve brigade of 29th Division. It was from here, in the relatively uneventful weeks of April and early May, that members of the Newfoundland Regiment who had not already had leave in Cairo en route to France from Gallipoli were able to go for eight days to the United Kingdom on leave. Others were not so lucky, and were called on to help build a railway line at Lealvillers (to the south), or to engage on endless route marches over the ghastly pave of the roads — the cobbles and the ammunition boots of the soldiers did not go well together. There was also extensive training in anti-gas warfare and tests were made to ensure that gas masks fitted and were effective. Whilst in the line, Englebelmer became the reserve area for the battalion; at that stage in the war it was more or less in one piece. Besides taking their place in the line, the Regiment had to provide work parties — and in the early days this was largely centred on the construction, improvement and maintenance of the Tipperary Avenue communication trench.
The Regiment spent thirty four days in total at Louvencourt, and became very attached to its inhabitants — it seems to have been a mutual feeling. Once it became clear what the role of the Regiment was to be on July 1st, the battalion began systematic training in an area to the north of Louvencourt, in the fields to the right of the road to Authie. There were frequent practices over the ground which was topographically similar and which had been marked out clearly on the ground by furrows. Many a farmer on the Somme did rather well out of the compensation paid by the British Government for the damage done to his crops by the rehearsals going on up and down behind the British line. The training was exhausting and exhaustive, involved long marches (ten miles in full fighting order was not unusual), and the Brigade staff was keen that every eventuality should be catered for, no matter how small, and rehearsed again and again. In between times the Regiment still had to provide work parties and to man the front line. By now the 29th Division was digging its own deep dugouts near the front to hold hundreds of men; building bridges across trenches that would be able to carry Horse Artillery; cutting zig-zag paths through their own wire, and providing carrying parties — never-ending carrying parties — to bring endless trench stores to dumps: screw pickets, coils of wire, timber, petrol tins filled with water, duckboards, pit props and, most dreaded of all, toffee apple mortar bombs and gas cylinders. The experience of the Newfoundland Regiment on the Somme in the months prior to the great attack was no different to that of the tens of battalions preparing for the Big Push.
It is worth stopping the car and taking a short stroll around Louvencourt — it has massive houses and farms and barns that the soldiers of so long ago might have no difficulty in recognising — indeed they might well be survivors, judging from the rickety appearance and rather old-fashioned method of construction.
For the return journey head straight for Acheux and then Forceville. The Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division spent some time billeted here in the early days of October 1916. From there take the minor road to Mailly Maillet, passing to the north of another huge wood.
The 1/8 Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders passed this way (along with the rest of their brigade) from their billets in Forceville en route to their positions for the attack on November 13th. The anonymous chronicler of that battalion describes the preparations and the move up on November 12th, which here follows, in an edited form.
‘Some platoons are being served out with bombs, two per man — others are drawing picks and shovels to be used for making fire-steps on the eastern side of the enemy trenches, after they are taken. (There is no question of their not being taken although shell holes near the front line are inhabited by skeletons of troops that did fail). Many individuals are busy sewing on their tunics the four vertical red bars, which distinguish the 8th Argylls from other battalions in the division — and yet others write home, which may be their last, yet are filled with a spirit of optimism which can hardly fail to cheer the recipients at home.
‘The general feeling is one of elation. The anticipation of exchanging the monotony of “holding the line” for the adventure of crossing No Man’s Land and getting in a shrewd blow at the Boches, causes a pleasurable excitement. They feel that they are going to help to shorten the war. Individually, underlying this elation and pride, there may be occasionally a melancholy qualm that one may get killed or crippled. It is a qualm which arrives at odd moments, and which soon passes away in the stir which is going on. Some there are, unfortunately, who know (as far as human beings can foretell the future) that they are going to be killed. Maybe it is that “fey” state to which Highland people are subject. A few show it in their demeanour, however bravely they may try to hide it. Poor lads! Their time of great trial is now, not in the hectic moments of the attack.
Darkness begins to fall. The order, “Estaminets are all out of bounds” increases the general excitement. Then the command, “Fall in at 9 pm.” comes as a welcome finale to the weeks of waiting for the great day in prospect. At 9 pm platoons are falling in — hard to see them in the darkness, as they line up around the dung heaps in the courtyard of the little farms where they are billeted. Platoon sergeants call the roll quietly — subalterns make a quick inspection of equipment, then out through the archway into the road to take their position in battalion in line of march. Formal orders are few. Each company simply tacks itself on to the rear of the Company it has been detailed to follow — and similarly with regard to the battalions. (The 8th Argyll’s left Forceville with 21 officers and 674 other ranks.) They take their place in the brigade line of march at the appointed time. The word passes back, “No smoking” a hefty jolt to the lad that loves his Woodbine! No smell of fragrant smoke to inspire him as he stumbles along that dark Forceville-Mailly Maillet road, ankle deep in mud — nothing to see in the darkness, except the dim outline of the man in front with the points of his pick sticking out on either side of his head like a pair of horns! Not inspiring this, makes one think of another world, where shovels are, according to report, in common use. The march also is the very worst of its kind; it cannot be properly called a march, but merely a stumble or succession of stumbles. Stumble fifty yards — stop — “What’s up?”. “Something in front”. Stumble another fifty — another stop — same question — same reply, and so on for hours. And that equipment! Quite light and comfortable when one first puts it on the back there in Forceville, but now getting heavier and heavier with every step. Comfortable it was too, but now developing as many points as there are on the compass! One gets one’s fingers under the strap, gives a heave upwards to throw the haversack on the back of the neck — and stumbles on again. Likewise those bombs in the pockets, round and smooth enough to handle despite their corrugations, but at this juncture causing the temper to be anything but smooth. Chafing one’s skin they are, rubbing raw spots on one’s tender skin; getting a wild Highland man into absolutely the best mood to make correct use of those same bombs when the time for action comes.
German farriers working on their horses in Grandcourt.
Here we are, at Mailly Maillet at last; somewhere about midnight, I should think, no lights being allowed even for the looking at watches — and no smoking either, though perhaps a little is going on surreptitiously, when the platoon officer’s back is turned. So on through Mailly and out at its north end (this would be on the Serre road), wheel right, through a gate into a field, cross the field, and another, then — welcome command, “Form up in close column, and halt!” Every man loosens his equipment, and sits down where he has halted, weary and thankful to be rid of his load, for however short a space of that time which may be near to eternity.’
At Mailly make for Auchonvillers and from there to Hamel. Proceed along the road to Beaucourt, and from there towards Miraumont. After a couple of kilometres there will be a turning on the right for a very minor road to Grandcourt and beside it Baillescourt Farm, which has been rebuilt on the site of the old one. It was from here that it was feared that the German counter-attack would come in an attempt to wrest Beaucourt back from the Royal Naval Division. As you come in to Miraumont there is a sharp turning right which leads down to the site of the old mill. This was used as a German supply and munitions dump which blew up on 5th August 1916. In the middle of Miraumont there is a turning to the right to Pys, Courcelette and Petit Miraumont. Before taking it you may feel like visiting the grave of 2/Lt Uren, who is buried in the communal cemetery which is the turning to the left at the same point — the cemetery is at the end of the engagingly and accurately named Rue du Cimetiere. 2/Lt Uren was a casualty of the officers’ patrol by 1/Lancashire Fusiliers on the 18th May 1916, described elsewhere, and was buried here by the Germans.
Once you have passed under the Railway Bridge turn right on the D151 to Grandcourt; some men from the Ulster Division actually made it to the edges of this village on July 1st, an extraordinary achievement. You can follow the road all the way back along to the tiny hamlet of St Pierre Divion, and you should emerge on Mill Road, the road between Thiepval and Hamel; alternatively you may cross the railway line at Beaucourt (or Beaumont) Station and take the more direct route back to Albert.
