[1] The village is atop four low, flat-topped ridges in the shape of a flattened X, the ends pointing towards Essarts, Rossignol Wood, the west side of Hébuterne and the eastern fringe of Foncquevillers.

[2] On 4 October 1914, German attacks by the Höhere Kavallerie-Kommando 2 (II Cavalry Corps), General der Kavallerie Georg von der Marwitz) and the XIV Reserve Corps drove the group of divisions comprising the 81st, 82nd, 84th and 88th Territorial divisions (General Joseph Brugère) back from Hébuterne, Gommecourt and Monchy au Bois to the north.

Gommecourt was captured by the 1st Guard Division (Generalleutnant Oskar von Hutier) on the night of 5/6 October and held against French counter-attacks, which were stopped 50 yd (46 m) short of the village, where the front settled until March 1917.

Haig was not formally subordinate to General Joseph Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and perforce complied with French strategy.

A smaller attack from La Bassée to Ypres would take place a week or two earlier and the Tenth Army would be relieved in early June as more British divisions arrived in France.

[7] The chief of the Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, the German General Staff), Erich von Falkenhayn, intended to end the war in 1916, by splitting the Anglo-French Entente, before its material superiority became unbeatable.

Falkenhayn planned to defeat the large amount of reserves which the Entente could move into the path of a breakthrough, by threatening a sensitive point close to the existing front line, to provoke the French into costly counter-attacks against fortified German positions.

Rapid expansion created many vacancies for senior commands and specialist posts, which led to many retired officers (dug-outs) and inexperienced newcomers being appointed.

The second position was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to delay the infantry advance until sufficient guns and ammunition had been brought forward.

The main British posts were along the eastern fringe of Hébuterne and the ridge running south; the valley slope drained water from the area but the 46th (North Midland) Division front was flat and boggy.

Assembly trenches dug 150 yd (140 m) behind the British front line had also been ruined by the heavy rains and tapes were laid the night before the attack to help the second and later waves to align.

[21] The 37th Division on the northern (left) flank of VII Corps, held a front 4.5 mi (7.2 km) from north of Gommecourt to Ransart and was to induce the Germans to expect an attack by simulating preparations.

On the north side of the village, the barbed wire in front of RIR 91 had been badly cut and the trenches flattened but most of the dugouts remained intact, including one penetrated by a heavy shell which failed to detonate.

The farm cellars had been fortified and with shell-hole positions and part of a trench behind, the garrison held out, tired the attackers and reduced their supply of grenades.

The German bombardment increased to the point that the party digging the trench to protect the right flank could not begin and many of the bombers ready to advance at 9:30 a.m. were also caught in no man's land, became casualties and could not participate in the next stage of the attack against the Quadrilateral.

[29] Attempts by the 56th (1st London) Division troops to broaden the penetration were thwarted and at 7:40 a.m. the commander of II Battalion, RIR 55 ordered a counter-attack from the Kernwerk but the local commander of the 7th Company concentrated on containing the British advance and managed to force the British under cover, 330 ft (100 m) short of the Kernwerk, where they established two Lewis guns between Hauser Graben (House Trench) and Süd Graben (South Trench).

In the smoke and dust, with the telephone lines cut the Germans used runners to report to battalion headquarters and the various commanders issued counter-attack orders in ignorance of each other's decisions.

Just after the orders were issued, the two Staffordshire battalion commanders were wounded, which caused another delay until Lieutenant-Colonel C. H. Jones (1/5th Leicester) could be found and two officers from the brigade HQ sent to assist form four waves.

[33] One battalion commander unilaterally cancelled the attack before the order arrived and of twenty men who crossed the parapet on the left, 18 were shot down by machine-gun fire or shrapnel in 30 yd (27 m).

[34] Against the 46th (North Midland) Division, the right flank units of RIR 55 and RGR 91 were able to get out of their deep dugouts in sectors X1 to G1 quickly enough to engage the British as they were crossing no man's land.

Trench sentries had kept watch despite the artillery-fire and as soon as the bombardment lifted they gave the alarm and the men not slowed by damaged dugout entrances, took post within two minutes.

Enfilade fire from machine-guns in Schwalben Nest swept no man's land made it impossible for the British to cross and doomed those already in the German defences.

Groups of wounded men had been filtering back across no man's land since 1:00 p.m. but nothing could be seen of the 46th (North Midland) Division and news arrived that the VIII Corps attack at Serre to the south had failed.

The party was pushed into shell-holes and ran the gauntlet across no man's land, losing many casualties to small-arms fire, the survivors reaching the British lines at 9:30 p.m.[40] After night fell, the 138th Brigade took over the 46th (North Midland) Division front with a battalion of the 139th Brigade attached and Brigadier-General G. C. Kemp sent the 1/5th Lincoln forward with the 1/5th Leicester as a right flank guard just after midnight, to reach the men thought still to be holding out in the German front line.

The British infantry carried red flares to indicate their positions to the contact aeroplanes but none was ignited; the crews had to descend low enough to see the colour of troops' uniforms.

An aircraft flying back from the front line to drop a message flew into the 5 Section balloon cable near St Amand, spun down it and crashed but the crew escaped injury.

[44] In 2005, Prior and Wilson wrote that the diversion succeeded to the extent that an extra German division was moved into the front line but the defence of the salient was based on artillery rather than infantry.

In 2006, Alan Macdonald used the figures of the 56th divisional adjutant who calculated 4,243 casualties, 71 fewer than that given in the official history which is unusual, since some of the men reported missing turned up later and were removed from the list.

[52][56] The retirement was conducted in a slow and deliberate manner, through a series of defensive lines over 25 mi (40 km) at the deepest point, behind rear-guards, local counter-attacks and the demolitions of the Alberich plan.

[57] During the German spring offensive (1 March – 18 July), the purple line, an improvised defensive position, was dug to the south, east and north of Gommecourt.