page_title: Operations on the Ancre, January–March 1917
section_title: Alberich Bewegung (Alberich Manoeuvre)
hierarchical_section_title: Operations on the Ancre, January–March 1917 / Aftermath / Alberich Bewegung (Alberich Manoeuvre)
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the area crossed by the 5th Australian Division during the advance to the Hindenburg Line, 17 March - 6 April 1917
context_page_description: Operations on the Ancre took place from 11 January – 13 March 1917, between the British Fifth Army and the German 1st Army, on the Somme front during the First World War. After the Battle of the Ancre, British attacks on the Somme front stopped for the winter. Until early January 1917, both sides were reduced to surviving the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes. Preparations for the British offensive at Arras, due in the spring of 1917, continued.
  The Fifth Army was instructed by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig to make systematic attacks to capture portions of the German defences to pin down German troops. Short advances could progressively uncover the remaining German positions in the Ancre valley, threaten the German hold on the village of Serre to the north and expose German positions beyond to observation from the captured ground. Artillery-fire could be directed with greater accuracy by ground observers and make German defences untenable.
  A more ambitious plan for the spring was an attack into the salient that had formed north of Bapaume, during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
context_section_description: The severe cold ended in March and thaws turned the roads behind the British front into mudslides. German demolitions provided means to repair roads once the British advance began but traffic carrying the material did as much damage as the weather. Attempts to move artillery forward encountered severe delays. Ammunition had been moved forward in preference to road material in February and the German withdrawals in the Ancre valley, left the guns out of range. During the winter, many British draught horses had died of cold, overwork and lack of food, leaving the Fifth Army 14,000 horses short. The line of the road from Serre to Bucquoy, through Puisieux was almost impossible to trace but the 62nd and 19th divisions, on the flanks of the 7th Division of V Corps, fought its way into Puisieux on 27 February and began skirmishing towards Bucquoy by 2 March.
  The 18th (Eastern) Division surrounded and swiftly captured Irles on 10 March and the 7th and 46th divisions were ordered to occupy Bucquoy on 14 March, after air reconnaissance reported it almost empty. Protests were made by Major-General George Barrow, the 7th Division commander, Brigadier-General H. Cumming, commander of the 91st Brigade, Major-General William Thwaites of the 46th (North Midland) Division and the commander of the 137th Brigade, after patrols had reported that the village was protected by many machine-guns and three belts of wire, despite two days of wire-cutting bombardments. The V Corps commander, Lieutenant-General Edward Fanshawe, insisted that the attack go ahead and agreed only a delay until moonrise at 1:00 a.m. The artillery bombardment was fired from 10:00 p.m.–10:30 p.m. alerting the German defenders, who repulsed the attack. The 91st Brigade lost 262 casualties and the 137th Brigade 312 casualties, the Germans withdrew two days later.
  On 19 March, I Anzac Corps was ordered to advance on Lagnicourt and Noreuil, under the impression that the fires that could be seen foreshadowed a retirement beyond the Hindenburg Line. The 2nd Australian Division and the 5th Australian Division were past Bapaume, towards Beaumetz and Morchies and followed up the withdrawal of the 26th Reserve Division from Vaux-Vraucourt. Beaumetz was captured by 22 March and then lost during the night to a German counter-attack, which led the Australians to plan the capture of Doignies and Louveral with the 15th Brigade in daylight, without artillery or flank support. The plan was countermanded by the divisional commander, Major-General Talbot Hobbs, as soon as he heard of it and Brigadier-General Elliott was nearly sacked. The 7th Division commander, after the costly repulse at Bucquoy, delayed his 1,200 yd (1,100 m) advance on Ecoust and Croisilles, to liaise with the 58th (2/1st London) Division to the north-west. Gough ordered the attack on Croisilles to begin without delay but the advance was stopped by the Germans at a belt of uncut wire on the outskirts of the village. Gough sacked Barrow and left his replacement, Major-General T. Shoubridge, under no doubt about the need for haste. The Hindenburg Line was unfinished on the Fifth Army front and a rapid advance through the German rearguards in the outpost villages, might make a British attack possible before the Germans were able to make the line "impregnable". The village eventually fell on 2 April, during a larger co-ordinated attack on a 10 mi (16 km) front, by the I Anzac Corps on the right flank and the 7th and 21st divisions of V Corps on the left, after four days of bombardment and wire-cutting.
  The British official historian, Cyril Falls, described the great difficulty in moving over devastated ground beyond the British front line. Carrying supplies and equipment over roads behind the original British front line was even worse, due to over-use, repeated freezing and thaws, the destruction of the roads beyond no man's land and demolitions behind the German front line. The British command was reluctant to risk unsupported forces against a German counter-attack and the evidence from the Fifth Army front, that hasty a
caption: The 5th Australian Division advance to the Hindenburg Line, 17 March – 6 April 1917.
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