Archive | Arras South

During a recent group visit to the Arras battlefield we stayed at Boiry- Notre-Dame. One morning, before breakfast, I decided to take myself off on foot through the village heading west along a track (a continuation of the Route d’ Arras) towards Monchy-le-Preux. After about twenty minutes the ground began to rise slightly (Infantry Hill), […]

Guémappe did not lie on high ground, nor was it very far from Wancourt, which lay a mere thousand yards or so further up the Cojeul valley to the south-west. With the Wancourt Tower in British hands, Guémappe appeared extremely vulnerable from the south, whilst to the north, with Monchy gone, it was beginning to […]

When the Germans evacuated the villages of Wancourt and Héninel on the 12th April they did so out of necessity. By then, the Wancourt-Feuchy Line, including Feuchy Chapel, had already fallen. The Hindenburg Line to the north of Héninel, around Neuville-Vitasse and Telegraph Hill, was now in our hands and Monchy-le-Preux had also been prised […]

There can be no doubt that Monchy-le-Preux was a key location on the Arras battlefield. Its capture on the 11th April 1917 was an important event. The Germans certainly didn’t want to lose it, which was why they tried to retake it a few days later on the 14th April. That date rightly belongs to […]

Minor operations were often carried out at the same time as much bigger affairs and, understandably perhaps, they tend to have attracted little attention over the years. The opening of the Battle of Arras was no exception. For that reason alone, while putting together ‘Arras South’, I was tempted to venture across the Bapaume-Cambrai road. […]

Rolls of Honour may not be fashionable these days, some seeing them as merely ‘lists’, but they do serve a purpose. In his introduction to “Pro Patria Mori – The Edinburgh Academy at War 1914-1918” – Jonathan Lisher, Head of History at the school, suggests that if we really want to understand the nature of […]

The 12th (Eastern) Division spent much of 1917 in the Arras sector just south of the River Scarpe around Monchy-le-Preux. In ‘Arras South’ (pages 49 – 55) I went into a certain amount of detail regarding the events that took place in this locality during the Summer and Autumn of 1917 after the Battle of […]

Anyone familiar with accounts of the Battle of Arras will be struck by the size of the Scottish contingent that took part on the opening day. John Buchan in his “History of the Great War”, Volume 3, notes that thirty-eight Scottish battalions left the British parapets that morning, adding that this was more than the entire British force at Waterloo and […]

My working draft of “Visiting the Fallen” also had the subtitle: “A Guide to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemeteries in and around Arras”. The question was how far should I stretch that definition? In the end I decided to be guided by the map that appears on the end-paper (front) of “Military Operations – France and […]