Battle of Le Transloy The Battle of Le Transloy was the final offensive mounted by the British Fourth Army during the 1916 Battle of the Somme . Prelude . With the successful conclusion of the preceding Battle of Morval at the end of September , the Fourth Army of Lieutenant General Henry Rawlinson had finally captured the third line of German defences on the Somme . Unfortunately , while there had only been three lines at the start of the Somme battle in July , the Germans had not been idle during the slow Allied advance and Rawlinson ' s army was now confronted by a fourth line of defences along the Transloy ridge beyond which fifth and sixth lines were under construction . The prospect of a breakthrough was as distant as ever . Nevertheless , the British commander - in - chief , General Sir Douglas Haig , still had plans to achieve a breakthrough involving his three armies on the Somme ; the Fourth Army in the south , the Reserve Army ( later the Fifth Army ) in the centre and the Third Army of General Edmund Allenby in the north . The first step was the capture of the Transloy line by the Fourth Army . Battle . Fourth Army . The battle , which opened on 1 October , began well with the capture of Eaucourt L ' Abbaye by the 47th ( 1 / 2nd London ) Division as well as an advance along the Albert - Bapaume road towards Le Sars . The advance was resumed on 7 October and Le Sars was taken by the British 23rd Division but progress along the Canadian lines stalled . In XIV Corps the 56th Division attacked Hazy , Dewdrop and Spectrum Trenches in the afternoon but was forced back but nightfall and the Germans reoccupied Rainy Trench which had been left empty . In III Corps the 47th Division made a failed attempt to take Stag Trench but was able to get posts onto the Eaucourt l ' Abbaye – Warlencourt road , connecting with the 23rd Division which had attacked Flers Trench ( ) at dawn and established a post north - west of Le Sars . The weather was rapidly deteriorating and the battlefield , which had been pummelled to dust by relentless artillery bombardment over the preceding three months , turned into a quagmire . Rawlinson mounted further attacks on 12 October including the Newfoundlanders at Gueudecourt , 18 October and 23 October but there was little chance of a significant gain . Reserve Army . The last throe ( which by now included the Australian forces of the I ANZAC Corps ) , came on 5 November despite protests from some corps commanders who believed continued attacks to be futile . French operations . The French Tenth Army attacked again 10 – 21 October and captured woods near Chaulnes . The line was advanced towards Pressoir , Ablaincourt and Fresnes on a front from Chaulnes to the north - east . In the Sixth Army , XXXIII Corps astride the Somme , attacked on the south bank on 18 October to counter German mining and improve the line La Maisonnette – Biaches , although a German counter - attack on 21 October regained some ground . On 29 October XXXIII Corps was pushed out of La Maisonnette at the end of the salient south - east of Biaches . A French attempt to retake La Maisonnette was delayed and eventually cancelled . Aftermath . The 1917 battles of Passchendaele have become synonymous with mud and misery but according to the Australian official historian , Charles Bean , the conditions on the Somme in November were " the worst ever known by the First A . I . F . " Commemoration . The Royal Newfoundland Regiment ' s participation in the Battle of Le Transloy is commemorated with the Gueudecourt Newfoundland Memorial . The memorial marks the place where the Newfoundlanders returned to the Somme in early October after heavy losses four months earlier in the 1 July attack at Beaumont Hamel on the first day of the Battle of the Somme . The rebuilt Newfoundland Battalion played a decisive role in the capture of a German strong - point named Hilt Trench , northeast of Gueudecourt village . The memorial also marks the furthest point of advance that any British unit made from the original front lines during the Somme offensive . The Rifle Brigade counted Le Transloy as one of their battle honours for the Somme .