Warlencourt Ridge is as tragically famous in the British Army as the
Mort-Homme is for their French comrades-in-arms.
From the top of Hill 122, the last before Bapaume, the view embraces
the whole region, renowned for the battles fought before the town
first in the Franco-German War (1871) and then forty-six years later
(1917-18). At the foot of the ridge lies the ruined village of
Ligny-Thilloy; to the right, on the sky-line, accumulations of stones
and rubbish, the suburbs of Bapaume; on the left, the remains of
Loupart Wood, and, behind, a few broken walls, all that is left of the
village of Grévillers.
The ground was everywhere cut up with trenches and defence-works, to
destroy which a terrific pounding by the artillery was necessary. Not
a single square yard escaped the deluge of shells, the destruction
being as complete as it was methodical. Of the trenches, which were
levelled before the fighting proper began, practically only traces
remain. The woods, turned into fortresses, have likewise vanished, only
shapeless tree-stumps being left. The villages were razed to their very
foundations.
As far as the eye can reach, nothing is seen but a chaotic waste
patched here and there with weeds and rank grass. In places, vestiges
of the ancient barbed wire entanglements, which overran the ground in
all directions, are met with. These were so numerous that the guns
could not entirely destroy them, but wide gaps were made through which
the attacking waves forced their way.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE UNDERGROUND DEFENCES.]
The Warlencourt Ridge proper consists of two superimposed eminences:
a bare plateau about two-thirds of a mile in width--now covered with
graves--and a chalky shell-torn hillock, which was the centre of the
German position.
[Illustration: WARLENCOURT RIDGE, SOUTH SIDE.]
Pierced with subterranean galleries, furrowed with several successive
lines of trenches, surrounded by a triple belt of entrenchments
bristling with barbed wire entanglements and flanked at every angle
by redoubts with innumerable mortars and machine-guns, such was the
ridge which, like an impregnable fortress, faced the British trenches
throughout the winter of 1916-17.
Several times in October and November, 1916, the British endeavoured
to carry the position, but each time their attacks failed against
the formidable defences. Only on February 25, 1917, did they succeed
in taking it, after a feint attack on the rear-guards, which were
protecting the withdrawal of the German main forces.
In 1917, the British erected five large crosses on the top of the ridge
in memory of the units which took part in the assaults of 1916.
_After visiting Warlencourt Ridge, return to N. 29, along which
continue to =Bapaume= (5 km.)._
[Illustration: THE TOP OF THE RIDGE.]
[Illustration: BAPAUME. BRITISH TANKS IN THE SUBURB OF ARRAS.]