page_title: Capture of Combles
section_title: German defensive preparations
hierarchical_section_title: Capture of Combles / Prelude / German defensive preparations
caption_attribution_description: English: Diagram of French operations leading to the capture of Combles 20-26 September 1916
context_page_description: The Capture of Combles was a tactical incident that took place during the Battle of the Somme. Combles lies 30 mi north-east of Amiens and 10 mi east of Albert, on the D 20 Rancourt–Guillemont road, 8 mi south of Bapaume, in the Combles valley a hollow between outcrops of Bazentin Ridge, between Morval to the north, Ginchy to the north-west and Falfemont Farm to the west. North of the village the valley widens into a basin, which forks north-east around the Morval Spur. In late September 1914, military operations took place in the vicinity, when the II Bavarian Corps was engaged by French Territorial divisions in an encounter battle. The French divisions were forced back and the two divisions of the II Bavarian Corps, advanced westwards on the north side of the Somme, eventually being stopped around Maricourt, Montauban and Fricourt.
  Combles became a backwater until 1916, when it was used as a shelter for reserves, supplies and engineer stores and a staging area for reinforcements. Gallwitz Riegel the German third defensive position being built as the battle began, ran close behind the village.
context_section_description: On the German right flank the XXVI Reserve Corps took over the Combles area on 3 September, with the 52nd Reserve Division on the right, the 51st Reserve Division held Morval with the Reserve Infantry Regiment 236 and the ground further south with Reserve Infantry Regiment 235. Reserve Infantry Regiment 234 held the village but losses had reduced the front line strength of the division to 1,200 men with a few machine-guns. Allied bombardments had destroyed trenches, dug outs, barbed wire and communications links and to avoid observation by aircraft the German troops had dispersed among shell-holes. During the day, Allied artillery directed by the crews of artillery-observation aircraft overwhelmed the 18 field artillery batteries and 56 heavy guns in the area. There were no rear defence lines and the transport of supplies to the front line could only take place at night. The divisional commander Generalleutnant Wilhem Balck, stressed that the defenders should co-operate closely with flanking units and the artillery and use hasty counter-attacks to recover lost ground and requested frequent reports delivered by all means possible. A new trench line was dug on a reverse slope east of Frégicourt and Rancourt, connecting Morval with the west end of St Pierre Vaast Wood and covering Sailly-Saillisel and from the wood south-east to Tortille river at Allaines.
  The cessation of German attacks at Verdun, ordered by the new supreme command of Chief of the General Staff, Field Marshal von Hindenburg and Generalquartiermeister General Erich Ludendorff, when they superseded Falkenhayn and the reinforcement of the Somme front, reduced the German inferiority in guns and aircraft on the Somme during September. Field artillery reduced its barrage frontage from 400–200 yd (370–180 m) per battery and increased its accuracy by using one air artillery flight per division, using the aircraft reinforcements from the Verdun front. Colonel Fritz von Loßberg, Chief of Staff of the 2nd Army, was also able to establish Ablösungsdivisionen (relief divisions) 10–15 mi (16–24 km) behind the battlefield, ready to replace front divisions. Loßberg established new positions based on depth, dispersal and camouflage, rather than continuous lines of trenches. Rigid defence of the front-line continued but with as few soldiers as possible, relying on the firepower of machine-guns firing from behind the front-line and from the flanks. Artillery reduced its counter-battery fire and area bombardments before Anglo-French attacks and used the reinforcements from Verdun for destructive fire, observed from balloons and aircraft.
  The area behind the front-line was defended by support and reserve units dispersed on reverse slopes, in undulations and in any cover that could be found, so that they could open machine-gun fire by surprise, from unseen positions and then counter-attack swiftly, before the Anglo-French infantry could consolidate captured ground. Local, corps and army reserves were held back, in lines about 2,000 yd (1,800 m) apart, to make progressively stronger counter-attacks. Before an attack the garrison tried to move forwards into shell-holes, to avoid Allied artillery-fire and surprise attacking infantry with machine-gun fire. Opposite the French the Germans dug new defences on a reverse slope between the Tortille stream at Allaines to the west end of St Pierre Vaast Wood and from there to Morval, connected to a new fourth position from Sailly Saillissel to Morval and along the Péronne–Bapaume road. After the Anglo-French attacks in mid-September a "wholesale relief" of the front-line divisions had been possible. The largest German counter-attacks of the Somme battle took place on 20–23 September, from the Somme north to St Pierre Vaast Wood and were "destroyed" by French artillery fire. Ludendorff created "new" divisions by combing-out troops at depots and by removing regiments from existing divisions, of which the 212th, 213th and 214th divisions replaced exhausted divisions opposite the French Tenth and Sixth armies.
caption: French operations against German defensive lines around Combles, September 1916
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