Butte de Warlencourt The Butte de Warlencourt is an ancient burial mound alongside the Albert - Bapaume road , north - east of the village of Le Sars in the Somme " département " of northern France . It is located on the territory of the commune of Warlencourt - Eaucourt . The site was later purchased for preservation by the Western Front Association . Battle . During the final stages of the 1916 Battle of the Somme , the Butte de Warlencourt was the subject of a number of costly and unsuccessful attacks by the British Fourth Army . It was captured by the British after the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line in February 1917 . The Butte de Warlencourt earned an evil reputation because the Butte dominated the British lines and was used by the Germans for artillery observation . The Germans also constructed deep dugouts throughout the Butte , making it a formidable defensive position . The first attack on the Butte was made on 1 October 1916 by the 141st Brigade of the British 47th ( 1 / 2nd London ) Division following their capture of the nearby village of Eaucourt L ' Abbaye . Another failed attack was made by the 140th Brigade on 7 October . The 47th Division ' s history described it thus : " From across the valley the enemy had magnificent observation of the ground leading to our objective , and made full use of it . . . not a man turned back , and some got right up under the Butte , but they were not seen again . " The regiment most closely associated with the Butte de Warlencourt was the Durham Light Infantry . In November this sector was held by the British 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division which contained the 151st Brigade comprising , at the time , three Durham Light Infantry battalion s . On 5 November the Butte was attacked by the 1 / 9th Durham Light Infantry , commanded by Lieutenant - Colonel Roland Boys Bradford who had just won the Victoria Cross at Eaucourt L ' Abbaye . Initially the attack was successful with a foothold being gained in the German trenches however strong counter - attacks drove the Durhams out . The battalion sustained over 400 casualties . Bradford summed up the fatal attraction of the Butte : " The Butte itself would have been of little use to us for the purposes of observation . But the Butte de Warlencourt had become an obsession . Everybody wanted it . It loomed large in the minds of the soldiers in the forward area and they attributed many of their misfortunes to it . . . . So it had to be taken . It seems that the attack was one of those tempting , and unfortunately at one period frequent , local operations which are so costly and which are rarely worthwhile . But perhaps that is only the narrow view of the Regimental Officer . " British artist William Orpen visited the Somme battlefield in September 1917 . He later described the Butte de Warlencourt as ' pale gold against the eastern sky , with the mangled remains of trees and houses , which was once Le Sars , on its left . But what must it have looked like when the Somme was covered with snow , and the white - garmented Tommies used to raid it at night ? It must surely have been a ghostly sight then , in the winter of 1916 ' . Orpen later executed a landscape of the Butte , and another , a portrait showing a British soldier sitting upon it in a manner evoking Rodin ' s " The Thinker " . Orpen later gifted both paintings to the Imperial War Museum . British war artist Christopher R . W . Nevinson also depicted the Butte in a pencil and chalk sketch , later acquired by the British Council . Commemoration . The land on which the Butte de Warlencourt stands was bought by the Western Front Association in 1990 ; memorials detailing the fighting that took place in the area were dedicated in a ceremony on the Butte on 30 June 1990 . The ceremony involved the then President of the WFA , well known historian and author John Terraine .