End of the retreat to the Hindenburg Line

On 5 April 1917 the British 145th Brigade of the 48th Division captured the group of villages of Ronssoy, Basse-Boulogne and Lempire north-west of Saint-Quentin. The attack went in without a preliminary bombardment, and the artillery opened fire only when called on by the infantry. After a short check at the wire and fighting in the streets, the British took 45 prisoners and six machine guns, losing 34 killed, 107 wounded and six missing. The British official history notes that Ronssoy was the last village in the Somme department in German hands, and that in Lempire the victors changed into new underwear from a captured German store. After the war the British Battles Nomenclature Committee ended “the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line” with the capture of these villages. From Arras to the Aisne the Allies now stood before the new German position.

Fighting for the outposts

The main German forces had occupied the new position, which they themselves called the Siegfriedstellung, as early as 19–20 March, just after the Allies took Péronne and Noyon. Work on it was not finished, however, especially on the sector south of Quéant, where the Germans had rebuilt the defences at the last moment. For that reason rearguards held on to villages a few kilometres in front of the line. At the beginning of April the British began to take them one after another, each time in a different way: at dawn, in the afternoon and at night, with and without a bombardment, with a barrage to a timetable or called down by the infantry.

On 1 April the 48th Division took Épehy in a surprise attack without artillery support, and the 32nd Division on 1–2 April, after heavy fighting for Savy and Holnon Wood, came to within about three kilometres of Saint-Quentin, losing nearly a thousand men. On 2 April, in the largest of these actions, the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions and the British 7th, 21st and 30th Divisions attacked on a front more than ten kilometres long, from Doignies to Hénin-sur-Cojeul. Noreuil, Longatte, Écoust and Croisilles fell, and Hénin was taken after nine hours of street fighting. At Noreuil Private Jørgen Christian Jensen of the Australian 50th Battalion was awarded the Victoria Cross for capturing a barricaded German post, and on the night of 3–4 April Major Frederick Lumsden earned the same decoration by bringing captured German guns out from under fire near Saint-Quentin. On 4 April, in a thick snowstorm, the British 20th Division took Metz-en-Couture south of Havrincourt Wood. The surprised Germans left hot coffee in the houses, but the attackers lost nearly 400 men.

Most of these attacks succeeded, but almost every one was costly. The British official history observes that the German defence was “soldierly and sound, but nothing more”, and yet the price of similar gains differed little, whatever the method. The British were hampered by the destroyed roads, along which it was hard to bring up heavy guns, and by exceptionally bad weather. The snow that fell at the beginning of April was a rarity in Picardy, and the soldiers spent the nights in a completely devastated countryside, while the German rearguards sat in cellars and dugouts which they blew up only at the last moment.

The French at Saint-Quentin

To the right of the British, General Georges Humbert’s French 3rd Army was approaching the new position south of Saint-Quentin. On 3 April the French took the Épine de Dallon hill, and on 4 April the last villages before the Hindenburg Line on their left wing. Humbert ordered the preparatory bombardment to begin at once, because the French Group of Armies of the North was to attack at Saint-Quentin. It was, however, a modest attack, meant only to replace the great blow between the Oise and the Avre that the German retreat had thwarted. Haig instructed General Henry Rawlinson, commander of the Fourth Army, to support the French, and that is why his divisions fought so stubbornly for the outposts.

What followed

The fighting in front of the new position did not stop on 5 April. On 7 April the British took Fresnoy-le-Petit after three night attacks, and on 9 April the 1st Australian Division occupied Hermies, Boursies and Demicourt, taking more than 200 prisoners and losing 649 men in two days of fighting. According to the British official history, on the front of General Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army the Germans now sat behind the wire of the Hindenburg Line, while on the Fourth Army’s front skirmishes for the last outposts went on until the end of April. On the same day, 9 April, the great British offensive began in the north, at Arras and Vimy.

The Germans had achieved what they wanted. They shortened the front by about 40 kilometres and, according to the British official history, saved 13–14 divisions. The Canadian official history states that by 16 April, when the Nivelle offensive began, the Germans had increased the number of their divisions on the threatened front on the Aisne from 18 to 42, and 14 of them they had gained precisely by shortening the line.