V Corps was holding a position in the Ypres salient at the time Fanshawe took command, but in August it was transferred south, to support the Somme Offensive. In the final phase of the Somme fighting, at the Battle of the Ancre in November, he commanded an attack which captured Beaumont Hamel, one of the initial objectives of the offensive more than three months earlier. He was knighted the following year.