page_title: Battle of Ginchy
section_title: Tactical developments
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Ginchy / Background / Tactical developments
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of French municipality Ginchy Français&#160;: Carte des communes françaises Ginchy Nederlands: Kaart van Franse gemeente Ginchy
context_page_description: The Battle of Ginchy took place on 9 September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, when the 16th Division captured the German-held village. Ginchy is 0.93 mi north-east of Guillemont, at the junction of six roads, on a rise overlooking Combles, 2.5 mi to the south-east. After the conclusion of the Battle of Guillemont on 6 September, XIV Corps and XV Corps were required to complete the advance to positions which would give observation over the German third position, to be ready for a general attack in mid-September, for which the Anglo-French armies had been preparing since early August.
  British attacks northwards from the boundary between the Fourth Army and the French Sixth Army, from Leuze Wood north to Ginchy, had begun on 3 September when the 7th Division captured the village, before being forced out by a German counter-attack. Attacks on Leuze Wood and attempts to re-take Ginchy on 4 and 5 September were also defeated by German counter-attacks. The 7th Division was relieved by the 16th Division and 55th Division on the evening of 7 September and the 5th Division was replaced by the 56th Division on the right at the army boundary.
context_section_description: After the capture of 6,000 yd (3.4 mi; 5.5 km) of the German second position on Bazentin Ridge by the British on 14 July, the Germans had reinforced the flanks of the captured ground and built more fortifications between the second and third positions. On the right flank the British line formed a salient at Longueval and Delville Wood, which ran west to Pozières and south to Maltz Horn Farm, the junction with the French Sixth Army. The salient was overlooked by German positions from Guillemont to the south-east and High Wood to the north-west. Control of Guillemont and Ginchy also gave the Germans observation of the ground to the south, over the French approaches to the German second line, from the Somme river north to Maurepas and the area between Malz Horn Farm and Falfemont Farm.
  German artillery could fire into the salient and the area beyond, where a huge mass of Allied artillery was based and through which the fronts of the Fourth and French Sixth armies were supplied over a small number of poor roads. In August, Joffre had pressed Haig to continue with big attacks on wide fronts but despite conforming to French strategy, Haig had refused to follow these tactics until the British Armies were ready, being unwilling to risk another fiasco like the attacks of 22/23 July. The British made a large number of small, narrow-front attacks, consistent with the state of training and supply of the British divisions, intended to approximate wide-front attacks, while concentrating artillery firepower opposite Guillemont, on the right flank of the Fourth Army. From late July to early September, many attacks took place to establish the British right flank on Guillemont and Ginchy, ready for a big attack combined with the French Sixth Army and the Reserve Army in mid-September.
  Publication of German casualty statistics for July 1916, showed that seven of the twelve divisions engaged by the British in July, had lost more than 50 percent of their infantry, increased optimism at British Expeditionary Force (BEF) General Headquarters (GHQ), that the German defence of the Somme front was weakening. GHQ Intelligence made a guess of 130,000 German casualties, while Lieutenant-General George Macdonogh, Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office in London, estimated 150,000 and the French 175,000 German losses. The Bavarian divisions south of the Albert–Bapaume road were assessed to have high morale despite "heavy losses" but it was believed that there were no more than five German divisions left in reserve on the Western Front. (British spy networks in northern France and Flanders had been blown in June 1916, which left the Secret Service and GHQ Intelligence ignorant of German troop movements in the area.) A general relief of the German divisions on the Somme was known to have been completed in late August and the assessment of German divisions available as reinforcements was increased to eight. GHQ Intelligence considered a German division on the British front was worn-out after ​4 ¹⁄₂ days, even though German divisions averaged twenty days in the line. Of six more German divisions moved to the Somme by 28 August, only two had been known to be in reserve and the other four had been moved from quiet sectors without warning. News of the dismissal of Falkenhayn reached the British on 30 August and it was taken by military intelligence to foreshadow increased German emphasis on the Eastern Front, which would make the German armies in France vulnerable. The "wearing-out" battles since late July and events elsewhere, led to a belief that the big Allied attack planned for mid-September could have decisive effect.
caption: Modern map of Ginchy and vicinity (commune FR insee code 80378)
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