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. Between 1914 and 1916, the Western Front ran through the commune, and the villages were completely destroyed. After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the former inhabitants returned and gradually rebuilt most of the infrastructure as it had been before the war.
The commune extends to the north and south of the D 929 Albert–Bapaume road, a former Roman road. The constituent village of Ovillers-la-Boisselle (commonly shortened to "Ovillers") lies to the north of the road. The constituent village of La Boisselle, which had 35 houses in 1914, lies to the south-west of Ovillers at the junction of the D 929 and the D 104 to Contalmaison. 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".
Ovillers-la-Boisselle in 1914
In late September 1914, the villages of Ovillers and La Boisselle were first touched by the Great War when the German XIV Reserve Corps began operations west of Bapaume by advancing down the D 929 Albert–Bapaume road to the River Ancre, preparatory to an advance down the River Somme valley to Amiens.
On 26 September, the French 11th Division attacked the invading Germans eastwards of Ovillers-la-Boisselle, but after French Territorial divisions were forced back from Bapaume, the division was ordered back to defend bridgeheads from Maricourt to Mametz.
On 27 September, the II Bavarian Corps attacked between the River Somme and the D 929 Albert–Bapaume road, intending to reach the River Ancre and then continue westwards along the Somme valley. The 3rd Bavarian Division advanced close to Montauban and Maricourt, against scattered resistance from French infantry and cavalry. On 28 September, the French were able to stop the German advance on a line from Maricourt to Fricourt and Thiepval, 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. Small-arms fire from well dug-in French troops added to the confusion and the attack collapsed, 400 German troops being captured in the fiasco.
On 19 November, two divisions of the French XI Corps attacked in the area of Ovillers and La Boisselle to pin down German troops, but were repulsed. On 28 November, an attack by the French XIV Corps managed to advance the French line by 300–400 metres (330–440 yd). In early December, the French IV Corps attacked around Ovilliers and gained 300–1,000 m (330–1,090 yd). All in all, however, the French attacks were costly and gained little ground. 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 war.
From 17 December, attacks by the French 53rd Reserve Division of XI Corps took place at La Boisselle, Mametz, Carnoy and Maricourt. Although wire-cutting had not been completed, the operation was ordered to begin at 6:00 a.m. without artillery support to gain a measure of surprise. The attack got beyond the German front line near Mametz and north of Maricourt and then repulsed German counter-attacks from Bernafay Wood and east of Mametz. The advance was contained by German reserves in the support lines and by flanking machine-gun fire. The 118th Battalion reached the cemetery of La Boisselle and the 19th Infantry Regiment closed on the western fringe of Ovillers. A German counter-bombardment then swept the ground west of Ovillers and Ravine 92, which prevented the approach of French reserves. During the night the French survivors of the attack fell back to the French front line, except at La Boisselle. The next day, the French XI Corps broke through the German defences at La Boisselle cemetery but was stopped a short distance forward at L'îlot de La Boisselle, in front of trenches protected by barbed wire. A German counter-attack using incendiary grenades then recaptured a trench north of Maricourt, but at 10:30 a.m. a French counter-attack by two battalions of the 45th Infantry Regiment and a battalion of the 236th Infantry Regiment managed to regain a small amount of ground.
On 24 December, the French 118th Infantry Regiment and two battalions of the 64th Infantry Regiment attacked again at La Boisselle at 9:00 a.m. after a bombardment. The 118th Regiment captured a small number of houses in the south-east of La Boisselle and consolidated the area during the night. The French 64th Regiment overran the German first line but was held up short of a second trench, which had not been discovered before the attack and then dug in, having lost many casualties.
On 27 December, a German bombardment on the captured positions in La Boisselle was followed by a counter-attack on the French 118th and 64th Regiments, which was repulsed. German heavy artillery reinforcements had been brought into the area and made the area soon untenable; the French withdrew their infantry from La Boisselle but soon began to fortify their remaining positions with underground works. A first mine shaft was sunk by French engineers on Christmas Day 1914. 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 fighting, Ovillers and La Boisselle were completely destroyed. No man's land around the ruined villages varied from 50–800 yd (46–732 m) wide, L'îlot being the narrowest part. Once the location of a small number of houses in the south-east of La Boisselle, L'îlot became known as Granathof (German: "shell farm") to the Germans and later as Glory Hole to the British. 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.
Ovillers-la-Boisselle in 1915
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. 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. The L'îlot area would remain the scene of fierce underground fighting until the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.
On 18 January, the German Reserve Infantry Regiment 120 made a surprise attack on La Boisselle and destroyed the 7th and 8th Companies of the French 65th Infantry Regiment, taking 107 prisoners. Fighting took place at La Boisselle for the rest of the year.
On the night of 6/7 February, three more German mines were sprung close to L'îlot. After the explosions, a large party of German troops advanced and occupied the demolished houses but were not able to advance further against French artillery and small-arms fire. At 3:00 p.m. a French counter-attack drove back the Germans and inflicted about 150 casualties. For several more days both sides detonated mines and conducted artillery bombardments, which often prevented infantry attacks.
On 1 March, German infantry massing for an attack at Bécourt – some 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) south of the ruins of La Boisselle – were stopped by French artillery, and on 15 March, a German mine was sprung at Carnoy and crater-fighting ensued for several days. By comparison, sixty-one mines were sprung around L'îlot de La Boisselle from April 1915 – January 1916, some with 44,000–55,000 pounds (20,000–25,000 kg) of explosives.
In mid-July 1915, extensive Allied troop and artillery movements north of the River Ancre were seen by German observers. The type of shell fired by the enemy changed from high explosive to shrapnel, and unexploded shells were found to be of a different design. In early 1915, an informal live-and-let-live system between combat operations had developed between French and Germans soldiers, but from mid-July the soldiers facing the Germans did not continue the practice. In addition, a larger number of machine-guns began firing against the German lines, and the Germans observed that they did not pause every 25 shots like French Hotchkiss machine-guns. At first, the German troops were reluctant to believe that the British had assembled an army large enough to extend as far south as the Somme. An unidentified enemy soldier seen by German observers near Thiepval was thought to be a French soldier in a grey hat but by 4 August, it was officially reported by Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL: General Headquarters) that the 52nd Division and the 26th Reserve Division had seen a man in a brown suit. 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. A second British soldier was captured when 1st East Lancashire troops of the 4th Division were wiring in no man's land. The soldier got lost in fog near the River Ancre and blundered into the German lines near the Biber Kolonie ("beaver colony").
During the summer months, the French mine workings in the area of Ovillers and La Boisselle were taken over by the Royal Engineers as the British moved into the Somme front and great secrecy was maintained to prevent the discovery of the mines. No continuous front line trench ran through L'îlot, which was defended by posts near the mine shafts. 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. In addition to digging defensive tunnels to obstruct German mining and creating offensive galleries aimed at destroying German fortifications, the Royal Engineers also dug deep wells to supply the troops with drinking water. In August 1915, the French and Germans at La Boisselle were working at a depth of 12 metres (39 ft); the size of their charges had reached 3,000 kilograms (6,600 lb). The British tunnelling companies dramatically increased the scale of mining operations by extending and deepening the system, first to 24 metres (79 ft) and ultimately 30 metres (98 ft). Above ground the infantry occupied trenches just 45 metres (148 ft) apart.
On 24 July 1915, 174th Tunnelling Company established headquarters at Bray, taking over some 66 shafts at Carnoy, Fricourt, Maricourt and La Boisselle. Around La Boisselle, the Germans had dug defensive transversal tunnels at a depth of about 80 ft (24 m), parallel to the front line. 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. At W Shaft they went down from 9.1 metres (30 ft) to 24 metres (80 ft) and began to drive two counter-mine tunnels towards the Germans. From the right-hand gallery at L'îlot, the sounds of German digging grew steadily louder. 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. This was completed by midnight from 20–21 November. At 1.30 am on 22 November, the Germans blew their charge, filling the remaining British tunnels with carbon monoxide. Both the right and left tunnels were collapsed, and it was later found that the German blow had detonated the British charge. The wrecked tunnels were gradually re-opened, but about thirty bodies still lie in the tunnels beneath La Boisselle.
Ovillers-la-Boisselle in 1916
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.