First Battle of the Scarpe ends

On 14 April 1917 the first stage of the Battle of Arras came to an end. After the war the British Battles Nomenclature Committee adopted this day as the end of the First Battle of the Scarpe, fought by General Edmund Allenby’s Third Army east of Arras. It also counted the Battle of Vimy Ridge up to this day, although the Canadian Corps’ fighting for the ridge itself had ended on 12 April. After a brilliant first day, on 11 April the British took the village of Monchy-le-Preux, which dominated the surrounding country, and on 12 April they occupied Wancourt and Héninel on the little river Cojeul, abandoned by the Germans. The attacks on Guémappe and on Rœux on the Scarpe, however, broke down under machine-gun fire. Fresh German divisions and artillery had already reached the front, and the British first-line divisions were exhausted after five days of fighting in snow and mud.

On the morning of 14 April, the first fine day of the battle, the Third Army attacked once more. South of the Cojeul the divisions of VII Corps tried to break through towards the Sensée valley, but gained only a little ground at the cost of heavy losses. The Queen Victoria’s Rifles battalion of the 56th (London) Division was almost annihilated. East of Monchy two battalions of the 29th Division, the 1st Royal Newfoundland Regiment and the 1st Battalion of the Essex Regiment, attacked Hill 100 (Infantry Hill). Without cover on their flanks they took the slope, but then the 3rd Bavarian Division struck them from the nearby woods. According to the British official history this was the first case in which the Germans at Arras applied the new, elastic defence: they gave way before the attack and then enclosed the enemy with fire from three sides. The battalions were almost completely destroyed and together lost more than a thousand men. For several hours only ten men, with the commander of the Newfoundlanders, Lieutenant-Colonel James Forbes-Robertson, stood between the Germans and the village. Firing from behind a low bank on the edge of Monchy, they pinned the Germans to the ground until reinforcements arrived in the afternoon. The Bavarians did not exploit their opportunity, and by evening the front was back where it had been.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge ended on 12 April, when the Canadians took the height known as the Pimple at the northern end of the ridge. In the following days, which the British nomenclature still counts as part of that battle, the Germans withdrew on 13 April from the foot of the ridge to the Oppy – Méricourt line on the Douai plain. The Canadians and British occupied Givenchy-en-Gohelle, Willerval and Angres, and on 14 April British troops approached Liévin near Lens. The whole ridge was in Allied hands.

The First Battle of the Scarpe brought the British more gains than any of their earlier offensives on the Western Front. By 12 April the Third Army had taken more than 7,500 prisoners and more than 100 guns, and by 11 April it had lost about 8,200 men. But 11 April had already shown that there would be no breakthrough. That day, on the southern flank, General Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army attacked the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt. The 4th Australian Division went in without a creeping barrage, behind tanks, most of which either failed to arrive or were quickly hit. The Australians broke into the German trenches but were cut off. They lost more than three thousand men, more than a thousand of whom were taken prisoner.

On the evening of 14 April Allenby still issued orders for a further advance towards the Sensée, but the next day he learned that Field Marshal Douglas Haig had decided to pause and prepare a new, coordinated attack by three armies. The same day the three divisional commanders at Monchy came forward with a joint representation against further isolated attacks, which exposed the infantry to fire from the flanks. Allenby agreed with them. On 15 April the Germans also attacked the extended positions of two Australian divisions at Lagnicourt and briefly captured several batteries, but were repulsed with heavy losses. Haig could not end the offensive, because he had promised to support the French attack on the Aisne, which was due to begin on 16 April. After an eight-day pause the Third Army attacked again.