British cavalry eventually attacked east of the wood and overran German infantry hiding in standing crops, inflicting about 100 casualties for a loss of eight troopers.

After the failure of the attack on Fort Souville at Verdun on 12 July, Falkenhayn ordered a "strict defensive" and the transfer of more troops and artillery to the Somme, the first visible strategic effect of the Anglo-French offensive.

Against the wishes of Marshal Joseph Joffre, General Sir Douglas Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road to reinforce the success in the south.

[8] The Fourth Army attacks were not co-ordinated, tactically crude, wasteful of manpower and gave the Germans an opportunity to concentrate their inferior resources on narrow fronts, multiplying their effect.

British artillery-fire cut communications and the XIV Reserve Corps (Generalleutnant Hermann von Stein) lost touch with the front line, not knowing if it still existed from Contalmaison to Pozières.

[19] The XIII Corps infantry on the right would have to cross up to 1,200 yd (1,100 m) of no man's land in the dark and assemble close to the Braune Stellung (second position), the front line since the Entente advances after 1 July.

[20] Haig was dubious about the scheme, because the British infantry were not trained or disciplined enough and because staff officers were too inexperienced to organise a 0.5 mi (0.80 km) night move, assembly and attack.

[22] The 18th (Eastern) Division at Trônes Wood diverted German attention on the east flank and it had been assumed that the French XX Corps would participate in the attack south of Guillemont.

To avoid premature shell-bursts in the creeping barrage caused by trees and buildings, only delay fuzed, high-explosive shell was to be fired from the 18-pounder field guns and the 4.5-inch and medium howitzers.

On 13 July, the British discovered that the Germans were eavesdropping on the field telephones of the 62nd Brigade (Brigadier-General George Gater); as a ruse, a call was made that operations had been postponed.

The six brigades had managed to assemble 400–500 yd (370–460 m) short of the German line with a trifling number of casualties, the covering parties encountering no small-arms fire, flares or patrols.

The 10th Cheshire tried a daylight attack on Ovillers but was repulsed by machine-gun fire and the 1/7th Royal Warwick (48th (South Midland) Division), tried to exploit the success of the 3rd Worcester but failed.

The Germans in Longueval made a determined defence but by 10:00 a.m. the 9th Scottish Rifles had taken their objectives, except the north end and a strong point in the south-east of the village, which resisted until attacked with support from the 7th Seaforth and the 5th Cameron Highlanders at 5:00 p.m.

[47] Observers saw many German troops retiring from Pozières and the British artillery was ordered to cease fire at 6:00 p.m. for patrols to check and south of the village the parties were driven back.

[48] A 3 Squadron crew saw the infantry and cavalry advance and the pilot dived on troops of III Battalion, IR 26 seen in standing crops, strafing them from a height of 300 ft (91 m).

Undergrowth slowed their progress and the north end of the wood, protected by the new Switch Line and the west side could not be captured, the troops digging in across the middle and the east edge, helped by engineers to consolidate, despite several counter-attacks.

A battalion bombed its way up North Street at 8:00 a.m. and another party tried to move through orchards on the west side but German reinforcements counter-attacked and recaptured the lost ground; another attack failed at 7:30 p.m.

At 4:40 p.m. Tanner reported to Lukin that German forces were massing to the north of the wood and he called for reinforcements, as the South Africans had already lost a company from the 2nd (Natal and Free State) Battalion.

As night fell, German high explosive and gas shelling increased and a counter-attack by three battalions from the 8th and 12th Reserve divisions began at midnight.

The 3rd Brigade was ordered to make a frontal attack at midnight, after the artillery of the division had spent the day wire-cutting, batteries firing from the right flank in Caterpillar Valley being particularly effective.

Next day, the lines from Cambrai and Bapaume to Roisel showed that troops were being rushed to the front south of the Somme and on 8 July, there was a lull in rail traffic.

[73] Three days later, the Fourth Army noted that German morale was improving, due mainly to better supply of the front line and by the end of July, British hopes of immediate success had faded.

[72] In 1928, Henry Jones, the official historian of the RAF, wrote that the battle showed that infantry co-operation would be a permanent feature of British air operations.

Miles wrote that authority could have been delegated to the divisional commanders on the spot, since the 33rd Division had already arrived at Montauban and a vigorous pursuit would have made the prospects for the cavalry much more favourable, when they managed to reach the front line.

[77] In a 2001 PhD thesis, Kathryn Snowden wrote that the 21st Division succeeded because of the weight and accuracy of the British bombardment enabled the night assembly to take place in safety.

The capture of 0.25 sq mi (0.65 km2) cost 3,000 casualties, the highest divisional losses in the attack; more ground could have been taken had exploitation been allowed before the German counter-attacks began.

[78] In 2005, Prior and Wilson called the attack a considerable achievement which showed that if an objective could be bombarded by enough shells, it could be captured but that this had been only the first stage in the Fourth Army plan, which had extravagant ambitions to be fulfilled by infantry and cavalry beyond the terrain devastated by the artillery.

Prior and Wilson wrote that the British failed to study the reasons for the results not reaching expectations and that this meant that Rawlinson and Haig had not learned from their mistakes.

[80] Piecemeal reinforcement of the German defences since 1 July had caused administrative chaos, an example being the crowding of the field kitchens of five regiments onto ground north of Courcelette, having to share the Stockachergraben, the last open communication trench, to carry food forward at night.

Units were assembled close together and suffered many casualties to German artillery but the British showed skill in rapid consolidation of captured ground and tenacity in defence, small parties with automatic weapons being most difficult to overcome.