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The front at Ovillers and La Boiselle

Written by Mike
Ovillers and La Boiselle. The black lines on the map show how close the parallel British and German lines were along much of 'the Front', often only around 20 metres apart. Lochnagar Crater, which can be seen today, is a millimetre or two off the bottom centre edge of this map – due south of the words 'La Boisselle'. Regrettably, its twin, 'Y Sap' – marked as a star-shaped feature on the north side of the Albert road – has now now been filled in by farmers with little interest in the great events that occurred on their land. Ovillers and La Boiselle. The black lines on the map show how close the parallel British and German lines were along much of 'the Front', often only around 20 metres apart. Lochnagar Crater, which can be seen today, is a millimetre or two off the bottom centre edge of this map – due south of the words 'La Boisselle'. Regrettably, its twin, 'Y Sap' – marked as a star-shaped feature on the north side of the Albert road – has now now been filled in by farmers with little interest in the great events that occurred on their land.

Ovillers was one of the front line villages held by the Germans.  Ovillers is situated on a spur which gave it an excellent view over the British lines. 

On the opposite side of the valley stood La Boiselle.  It was an equally heavily fortified village that commanded the north side of what was known as ‘Mash Valley’. 

Ovillers was attacked on July 1, 1916 by two brigades of the 8th Division under Major-General H. Hudson. 

They had to advance over 700 yards up ‘Mash Valley’ without any form of cover to get to the German trenches.  As they did so, the German machine-gunners mowed them down with huge losses. 

In two hours the 8th Division lost 218 of its 300 officers and 5,274 of its 8,000 other ranks.  The German defenders lost just 300 men.  It was not until July 16 after bitter fighting that the remnants of the German garrison surrendered.

Ovillers is situated 5km north east of Albert, just north of the D929 Albert to Bapaume road.

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Mike

Mike

Mike McCormac has been a photographer since about ten years old.  He's a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and lives in a village in the hills near Paphos in Cyprus.

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