page_title: Attacks on the Butte de Warlencourt
section_title: Analysis
hierarchical_section_title: Attacks on the Butte de Warlencourt / Aftermath / Analysis
caption_attribution_description: English: A young soldier in full kit, sitting on a rock on a mound. With his hand held pensively to his chin, his pose evokes 'The Thinker'. He sits against a background of dark blue sky, his features illuminated by a light shining down on him from the top left of the composition. English: The Thinker on the Butte de Warlencourt image: A young soldier in full kit, sitting on a rock on a mound. With his hand held pensively to his chin, his pose evokes 'The Thinker'. He sits against a background of dark blue sky, his features illuminated by a light shinin down on him from the top left of the composition.
context_page_description: The Attacks on the Butte de Warlencourt describe a tactical incident during the Battle of the Somme. The Butte de Warlencourt is an ancient burial mound off the Albert–Bapaume road, north-east of Le Sars in the Somme département in northern France. It is located on the territory of the commune of Warlencourt-Eaucourt and slightly north of a minor road to Gueudecourt and Eaucourt l'Abbaye. During the First World War, German troops constructed deep dugouts in the Butte and surrounded it by several belts of barbed wire, making it a formidable defensive position in advance of Gallwitz Riegel. After the Battle of Flers–Courcelette, the view from the Butte dominated the new British front line and was used by the Germans for artillery observation.
  During the Battle of Le Transloy, part of the Battle of the Somme, the Butte de Warlencourt was the subject of several attacks by the British Fourth Army, which were costly failures; attacks in November also failed. The 2nd Australian Division occupied the Butte on 24 February 1917, during the German retirements made on the Somme front, preparatory to Operation Alberich, the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line.
context_section_description: The British attack on 7 November caused the Bavarian troops frightful losses but on 12 October, the Germans showed that afternoon attacks had become predictable and that under-strength British units, few with more than 400 men and filled with many poorly trained replacements, were unable to defeat the German defenders. Air reconnaissance, contact patrol and artillery-observation by the RFC had been negated by poor visibility and the Germans were found to have moved back many machine-guns to concealed positions and engaged the British with long-range fire. Major-General the Earl of Cavan the XIV Corps commander, suggested that creeping barrages should begin just beyond each objective and that German gunners should be blinded by smoke shells but in 1916, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had none.
  The Butte itself would have been of little use to us for the purposes of observation. But the Butte de Warlencourt had become an obsession.  Everybody wanted it.  It loomed large in the minds of the soldiers in the forward area and they attributed many of their misfortunes to it. ... So it had to be taken.  It seems that the attack was one of those tempting, and unfortunately at one period frequent, local operations which are so costly and which are rarely worthwhile.  But perhaps that is only the narrow view of the Regimental Officer.
  — Roland Bradford
  By 20 October, the advance of the Fourth Army towards Bapaume near the Butte had been halted. In the middle of October, the German defenders had been under great strain, a large number of infantry units had been lost and soldiers surrendered much more readily. By the end of the month the defence had revived; German casualties in September had been 135,000 men, in October were 85,000 men and far less ground had been lost. Before the attack on 5 November, German observers saw much traffic on light railways and carts behind the British front; carrying-parties moving material forward from Courcelette and Le Sars could also be seen. It was considered certain that an attack was imminent when the British began to dribble reinforcements forward.
caption: William Orpen: The Thinker on the Butte de Warlencourt (Art.IWMART2984)
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