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The battle was the British part of the Third Battle of Artois, a Franco-British offensive (known to the Germans as the Herbstschlacht (Autumn Battle). Field Marshal Sir John French and Douglas Haig (GOC First Army), regarded the ground south of La Bassée Canal, which was overlooked by German-held slag heaps and colliery towers, as unsuitable for an attack, particularly given the discovery in ...
The division moved to France in July 1915 and spent the duration of the First World War in action on the Western Front. The division fought in the Battle of Loos in which it seizing the village of Loos and Hill 70, the deepest penetration of the German positions by the six British divisions involved in the initial day.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Loos (25 September – 8 October 1915), the 9th (Scottish) Division captured the strongpoint and then lost it to a German counter-attack. The British attack on 13 October failed and resulted in 3,643 casualties, mostly in the first few minutes.
In 1915, the division took part in the Second Battle of Ypres (Battle of Frezenberg Ridge, 11–13 May) and the Battle of Loos (26–28 September). [citation needed] On 29 February 1916, Machine Gun Squadrons were added to the cavalry brigades, formed from the machine gun sections of each brigade's constituent regiments. [13]
Map of the Hohenzollern Redoubt area, September 1915. A number of pit-heads known as Fosses and auxiliary shafts called Puits had been built around Loos-en-Gohelle in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France, when the area was developed by the mining industry; Fosse 8 de Béthune was close to the north end of a spoil-heap (Crassier) known as "The Dump".
The division took part in the Second Battle of Ypres, where they suffered massive casualties, and in the Battle of Loos. In October 1915 the 28th Division embarked from Marseilles for Egypt and in November 1915 travelled on to Salonika where the division would remain for the rest of the war.
In the Battle of Loos, notable for being the first battle in which British forces used poison gas, the 9th (Scottish) Division assaulted the Hohenzollern Redoubt, the 5th Camerons suffered horrific casualties, and Corporal James Dalgleish Pollock gained a Victoria Cross for his actions.
The Division was the first of the six created for the Third New Army on 13 September 1914. It moved to France in September 1915. It took part in the Battle of Loos in September 1915, the Battle of the Somme in autumn 1916, the Battle of Arras in April 1917, the Battle of Passchendaele in autumn 1917 and the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917. [1]