page_title: Battle of Mont Sorrel
section_title: Return to original lines
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Mont Sorrel / Battle / Return to original lines
caption_attribution_description: English: German trenches demolished by artillery (Battle of Mount Sorrel, Belgium), showing German dead. June, 1916
context_page_description: The Battle of Mont Sorrel was a local operation in World War I by three divisions of the British Second Army and three divisions of the German 4th Army in the Ypres Salient, near Ypres, Belgium, from 2 to 13 June 1916.
  To divert British resources from the build-up being observed on the Somme, the XIII Corps and the 117th Infantry Division attacked an arc of high ground defended by the Canadian Corps. The German forces captured the heights at Mount Sorrel and Tor Top, before entrenching on the far slope of the ridge. Following a number of attacks and counterattacks, two divisions of the Canadian Corps, supported by the 20th Light Division and Second Army siege and howitzer battery groups, recaptured the majority of their former positions.
context_section_description: Byng ordered 1st Canadian Division commander Major-General Arthur Currie to organize a careful attack against the German positions at Mont Sorrel and Tor Top. Due to the casualties suffered during the unsuccessful counterattack of 3 June, Currie regrouped his stronger battalions into two composite brigades. Four intense bombardments of thirty minutes each were carried out between 9 and 12 June in an effort to deceive the Germans into expecting immediate attacks, which did not transpire. For ten hours on 12 June all the German positions between Hill 60 and Sanctuary Wood were shelled unremittingly. Particular attention was given to the Canadian Corps flanks, from which enfilade machine-gun fire might be expected. The following morning, the Germans were subjected to an additional 45 minutes of heavy artillery bombardment, before the assaulting troops advanced behind a generated smoke screen. The Germans are believed to have been taken largely by surprise as they offered little resistance and the Canadians were able to take approximately 200 prisoners. With the exception of the trenches at Hooge, the Germans fell back to their original lines and in a little over an hour the assault was over. On 14 June, the Germans launched two counterattacks which were repulsed, after which they advanced their trench to within 150 metres (490 ft) of the Canadians but made no further assaults.
caption: German trenches demolished by artillery
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