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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 ...
In March 1916, the Germans had an unobstructed view of the British positions, from a slag heap named Fosse 8 and in previous mining operations, no man's land had become a crater field. The British front line was held by outposts, to reduce the number of troops vulnerable to mine explosions and the strain of knowing that the ground could erupt ...
In late September 1915, the division was assigned to participate in the Battle of Loos against fortified German positions at Loos-en-Gohelle and Hulluch. Advancing on 26 September against furious German opposition, the 7th Division was held up several times and Capper visited the frontline to view the enemy for himself from the captured trenches.
Battle of Loos. In the Battle of Loos (25 September–8 October 1915) the British First Army attacked between Grenay and Givenchy in support of the French Tenth Army attack further south against Vimy (the Third Battle of Artois). 1st Division was at Le Rutoire, in the middle of the line, and was tasked with the sector running from Northern Sap ...
Pyrrhic victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01880-8. Edmonds, J. E. (1928). Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915: Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of ...
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 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.
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]