Ovillers-la-Boisselle in World War I

In World War I, the small commune of Ovillers-la-Boisselle, located some 22 miles (35 km) north-east of Amiens in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France, was the site of intense and sustained fighting between German and Allied forces.

To avoid confusion, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in its documents referred to Ovillers-la-Boisselle north of the D 929 as "Ovillers" and to the village south of the road as "La Boisselle".

On 28 September, the French were able to stop the German advance on a line from Maricourt to Fricourt and Thiepval,[2] which included halting the XIV Reserve Corps on the D 929 Albert–Bapaume road at La Boisselle.

In an attempt to capture Albert, the Germans planned a night attack on Bécourt, some 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) south of La Boisselle, for the evening of 7 October, but the infantry found that keeping direction in the dark was impossible.

[5] Ovillers and La Boisselle thus became part of the Western Front, a line that stretched from the North Sea to Switzerland and which remained essentially unchanged for most of the entire war.

Many of the German units that had seen action on the Somme in 1914 remained in the area and made great efforts to fortify their defensive line, particularly with barbed-wire entanglements so that the front trench could be held with fewer troops.

Railways, roads and waterways connected the battlefront to the Ruhr area of Germany, from where material for minierte Stollen (dug-outs) 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1 m) underground for 25 men each could excavated every 50 yards (46 m) and the front divided into Sperrfeuerstreifen (barrage sectors).

As a result of the bloody and costly fighting for its occupation in late 1914, L'îlot quickly attained a profound symbolic status with the French Breton and German troops.

[9] January 1915 began frosty, which solidified the ground but wet weather followed and soon caused trenches and all other diggings to collapse, which made movement impossible after a few days, leading to tacit truces between the French and the Germans to allow supplies to be carried to the front line at night.

[10] Having started mining at La Boisselle shortly after the French, the Bavarian Engineer Regiment 1 continued digging eight galleries towards L'îlot at the south end of the village.

On 9 August, the arrival of the British Expeditionary Force became certain, when Private William Nicholson of the 6th Black Watch, 51st (Highland) Division was shot and captured during a German trench raid.

[15] After the Black Watch arrived at La Boissselle at the end of July, many existing trenches, originally dug by the French, were renamed by the Scottish troops which explains the presence of many Scotland-related names for the Allied fortifications in that front sector.

[17] In October 1915, the 179th Tunnelling Company began to sink a series of deep shafts in an attempt to forestall German miners who were approaching beneath the British front line.

[16] On 19 November 1915, 179th Tunnelling Company's commander, Captain Henry Hance, estimated that the Germans were 15 yards away and ordered the mine chamber to be loaded with 2,700 kilograms (6,000 lb) of explosive.

[16][a] After the Herbstschlacht ("Autumn Battle", 25 September – 6 November 1915) the German defensive system on the Western Front was improved to make it more capable of withstanding Allied attacks with a relatively small garrison.

Digging and wiring of yet another improved defence line in the area of Ovillers and La Boisselle began in May, French civilians were moved away and stocks of ammunition and hand-grenades were increased in the front-line.

[18] Fritz von Below, the commanding officer of the German 2nd Army, proposed a preventive attack in May and a reduced operation from Ovillers to St. Pierre Divion in June but got only one extra artillery regiment.

On 6 June, he reported that an imminent Allied offensive at Fricourt and Gommecourt was indicated by air reconnaissance and that the south bank had been reinforced by the French, against whom his XVII Corps was overstretched with twelve regiments to hold 36 kilometres (22 mi) without reserves.

With the exception of L'îlot, now a crater field just west of the ruins of La Boisselle, each German trench had an unmistakable white chalk parapet which could be seen from the British lines.

[21] The German defences in the Ovillers and La Boisselle sectors were mostly on a forward slope lined by white chalk, easy to see and to bombard by the enemy, but the natural spurs and re-entrants were excellent defensive features.

There were deep fields of barbed wire covered by machine-gun posts and many communication trenches, which made quick movement within the position possible and could be used to contain a penetration of the front line.

[20] Assembled nearby, 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Albert, stood the British Reserve Army under Lieutenant-General Hubert Gough, which was to advance once the roads had been cleared by the first attack.

As part of the Allied preparations, two mines with 3,600-kilogram (8,000 lb) charges (known as No 2 straight and No 5 right) were planted at L'îlot at the end of galleries dug from Inch Street Trench by the 179th Tunnelling Company.

[30] As the columns passed by the heavily fortified German salient at La Boisselle, bombing parties supported by Lewis gun and Stokes mortar crews were to attack from both flanks.

When the British battalion and brigade commanders ventured to doubt the viability of the plan, they were reminded that the week-long preliminary bombardment before the battle would have killed the village garrison by the time of the attack and that the mine explosions would destroy any remaining fortifications on either side of the La Boisselle salient.

[32] However, during the preliminary bombardment of the Ovillers and La Boisselle area, the III Corps artillery was hampered by poor-quality ammunition, which caused premature shell-explosions in gun barrels and casualties to the gunners.

[28] The tunnelling companies were to make two major contributions to the Allied preparations for the battle by placing 19 large and small mines beneath the German positions along the front line and by preparing a series of shallow Russian saps from the British front line into no man's land, which would be opened at Zero Hour and allow the infantry to attack the German positions from a comparatively short distance.

To assist the attack on the village, two further mines, known as Y Sap and Lochnagar after the trenches from which they were dug, were laid to the north-east and the south-east of La Boisselle on either side of the German salient[16][17] – see map.

At La Boisselle, the British captured the German front line trench on 2 July, occupied the west end of the ruined village by 9:00 p.m. and dug in near the church.

[44][45][46] In the afternoon, air reconnaissance saw that the British defence of the line from Montauban and Ervillers was collapsing and the RFC squadrons in the area made a maximum effort to disrupt the German advance.