Location 10 – Devonshire CWGC Cemetery and the Fricourt to Montauban Battlefield

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Directions – Continue on towards Bécordel-Bécourt. Just before entering the village turn left onto the D938 in the direction of Fricourt and Maricourt. You are now travelling due east along the southern part of the battlefield towards the British Fourth Army's junction with the French Sixth Army just north of the River Somme. Continue for about five minutes past Fricourt on your left and past the signpost to Mamtez. Shortly you will see a green CWGC sign on the right pointing to Devonshire CWGC Cemetery. Park the car at the bottom of the slope.

The no-man's land across which the 10th West Yorks met disaster on 1st July. Photo: Mark Sluman. Click on image for full size (180 KB).

IMPORTANT NOTE: The southern part of the battlefield saw some of the highest and lowest points of the British offensive on 1st July. West of Fricourt, the 10th West Yorks took the highest battalion casualties anywhere on that day – 710 officers and men killed and wounded. Yet less than three kilometres away, in front of Carnoy, the British 18th and 30th Divisions carried all before them, smashing the German forward positions and gaining important ground towards Mametz, Bernafay and Trônes Woods that would shape the pattern of the Somme offensive in the coming months.

To help explain these widely different outcomes and to guide the visitor around a swathe of the battlefield that is too often ignored by the package tour operators, I have decided to devote a future warwalk specifically to the events between Fricourt and Maricourt on 1st July. It will dovetail with later explorations of another aspect of the fighting which is all too often forgotten in Great Britain, the French Sixth Army's role on the Somme. In the meantime, for those who would like to find out more about the French Army's involvement in the battle I would recommend visiting the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne.

However, at this stage I would recommend visiting Devonshire Cemetery as a "must see".

Historical Notes – The 9th Devons of 7th Division supported by the 8th Devons, were scheduled to attack the German front line south of Mametz. Tragedy overtook them, however, as soon as they left their trenches. The exit from Mansell Copse, which lay amongst their forward trenches, was very slow and men bunched up as they filed into no-man's land. They made an easy target for German machine-gunners on the high ground below Mametz and very few of the Devons even made it as far as the German wire.

After the battle had moved on, the dead were collected and buried in the frontline trench by the regimental chaplain, Reverend E.C. Crosse. They included the poet, Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson and Captain Duncan Martin of "A" Company who both had well-documented premonitions that they would be killed in the attack. The cemetery contains four officers and 34 men of the 8th Devons and six officers and 116 men of the 9th Devons. A memorial stone at the entrance proclaims,

"The Devonshires held this trench, the Devonshires hold it still".