page_title: Capture of Stuff Redoubt
section_title: Morning
hierarchical_section_title: Capture of Stuff Redoubt / Prelude / 1 July / Morning
caption_attribution_description: Map showing British attack in the vicinity of the Schwaben Redoubt on 1 July 1916. This is a clip from the larger map of the Ancre sector File:Ancre sector 1 July 1916.png by Gsl.
context_page_description: The Capture of Stuff Redoubt was a tactical incident during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The redoubt had been built as part of the fortification of the Somme front by the German 2nd Army after the open warfare of 1914. On 1 July, the First Day on the Somme, troops of the 36th Division occupied part of the redoubt before being forced out by German counter-attacks. British troops were not able to reach the redoubt again until the Battle of Thiepval Ridge when parties of the 11th Division captured part of the redoubt. The rest of the redoubt was taken by the 25th Division during the Battle of the Ancre Heights.
  Some German officers thought that the blow to German morale was worse than news of the fall of Thiepval. The loss of the redoubt and the success of an attack by the British II Corps on Stuff Trench, beyond the redoubt, on 21 October exposed the Ancre valley and Grandcourt to ground observation.
context_section_description: At 7:15 a.m., the 36th (Ulster) Division troops formed up in no man's land and moved to within 150 yd (140 m) of the German front trench. The artillery and mortar bombardment lifted off the front trench at 7:30 a.m. and the Irish advanced steadily, crossing the front trench with few losses but then the German counter-barrage fell on the rear of the first line and the support companies. As soon as the British guns stopped, machine-gun fire from Thiepval cemetery caught the third support battalion on the left flank. The foremost infantry pressed on, reached the B line at 7:48 a.m. and took a large number of prisoners but German troops emerged from dugouts in the A line behind the 108th Brigade, whose moppers-up had been killed by machine-gun fire. The leading waves continued to advance and reached the C line and the corner of Schwaben Redoubt at 8:48 a.m., by when the supporting battalion survivors had occupied their objectives but cross-fire from German machine-guns then prevented movement forwards or backwards.
  Reserve Infantry Regiment 99 (RIR 99) of Reserve Infantry Brigade 52 (General von Auwäter), holding the line north of Thiepval, was broken through and the attackers rushed Schwaben Redoubt. The garrison, a support company standing by to reinforce the front defences, was surprised and surrendered after brief resistance. The centre battalion of RIR 99 had been destroyed in the breakthrough and 500 men taken prisoner. An attack towards the Grandcourt Line ran into the British barrage and defensive fire from German guns on the north side of the Ancre near Miraumont and from Gruppen Berta and Adolf, either side of the Ancre. German machine-gunners in Grandcourt and Feste Alt Württemberg (Beaucourt Redoubt) opened fire and the troops tried to dig in or fell back to Schwaben Redoubt and the Hansa Line, which ran from the redoubt down the north edge of the ridge to the Ancre.
  The left hand battalion of RIR 99 had repulsed the attack on Thiepval but the centre and right, from the village to the Ancre south of St Pierre Divion, had been overrun, the troops having been trapped underground and taken prisoner. Observers in the Grandcourt Line were unable to see the breakthrough because of smoke and dust in the air. Only when the British advanced on the Grandcourt Line, was the identity of the troops that could be seen in the area discovered. As soon as the British bombardment lifted, the only reserves nearby, the recruit battalion of IR 180 and a machine-gun company, occupied the Grandcourt Line around Thiepval.
  By 10:00 a.m. runners had reported the fall of the C line but because of the defeats of the 32nd Division on the right flank at Thiepval and the VIII Corps divisions on the north bank of the Ancre, Nugent tried to get permission to cancel the 107th Brigade attack on the D line but was over-ruled, as new attacks were being arranged on the flanks. About 45 minutes later, X Corps HQ ordered the advance to stop until the situation on the flanks was clearer but the stop order failed to reach the 107th Brigade, which advanced for about 1,000 yd (910 m) in a "wild and desperate venture", before the survivors were repulsed from the objective by German troops in the D line (Grandcourt Trench). German counter-attacks on the left flank from St Pierre Divion, were forced back several times by the remaining men of the three battalions on the left flank; on the right flank, Mouquet Switch Trench was reconnoitred and found empty.
  An attack from Schwaben Redoubt was met by machine-gun fire but a party of about fifty men reached a trench near Stuff Redoubt, finding it empty and about 200 men reached an artillery position in a fold known as Artilleriemulde (Boom Ravine), in front of the Grandcourt Line and more troops arrived 300 yd (270 m) to the north. By 10:00 a.m. the breakthrough on the 26th Reserve Division front had made Thiepval vulnerable to an attack from the redoubt, which would make the village untenable. Soden ordered Auwäter to recapture the redoubt and sent a battalion of Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 8 (BRIR 8) in r
caption: The British attack of 1 July 1916. Schwaben Redoubt is at centre right.
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