Utilising the ruins around and inside the town, the Germans had built
very strong lines of defences at short distances, one behind the
other, and preceded by deep barbed wire entanglements. But after the
capture on March 11-13, 1917, of Louppart Wood and Grévillers, west of
Bapaume--the only village in the district, whose houses and roofs were
practically intact--the British were masters of all the crests of the
Bapaume Plateau, and encircled the town so closely from north to south,
that the Germans decided not to defend the latter, in spite of the
powerful defences which they had accumulated. Before withdrawing, they
destroyed the trenches, devastated the entire district, set death-traps
everywhere, stretched chains, connected with mines, across the roads
and paths, and set fire to the shelters, etc.
Neither the destructions nor the companies of machine-gunners which
were left behind as rear-guards could stop the British, who occupied
Bapaume on March 17, 1917, while the fires lighted in the town by the
Germans were still burning.
[Illustration: BAPAUME. THE PLACE FAIDHERBE.]