Pozieres by Scott Bennett

Author:Scott Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Somme, 1st Battle of the, France, 1916., World War, 1914-1918 - Campaigns - France., World War, 1914-1918 - Participation, Australian., Pozieres (France) - History, Military.
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2011-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

Map 5. I Anzac Corps’ Advance on Mouquet Farm,

August to September 1916

chapter twelve

La Ferme du Mouquet

‘The earth grew nothing, although watered with a rain more precious than any other it had known.’

— Captain E. Gorman, With the Twenty-second

On the misty morning of 5 August, I Anzac Corps staff turned their attention to Gough’s order requiring them, at the earliest moment, to advance northward to Mouquet Farm and Thiepval. Cox’s 4th Division would be responsible for pushing past the farm and on to Thiepval. John Masefield wrote that the Australians’ push through the markless mud toward Thiepval marked the third sombre stage of their Somme battle.1

Mouquet Farm — known as ‘Moo Cow Farm’, ‘Mucky Farm’, or ‘Muckety Farm’ to those who struggled with the subtleties of the French language — was about 2000 yards from Pozières. In better times, if you had stood in the main street of Pozières and walked away from the village in a north-westerly direction, you would have passed some cottages, an orchard, a light-rail track, and a cemetery, and then dipped into a shallow valley. You would have crossed the Ovillers–Courcelette road that Gellibrand’s 23rd fought so hard to secure, on to an 800-yard dirt track that would take you through a second valley and up a gentle rise to the doorstep of Mouquet Farm. Gough believed that the farm had to be captured before Thiepval — 1500 yards away — could be threatened. Once the farm was captured, he would thrust his five divisions to the rear of Thiepval, and silence it once and for all.

After the momentous events at Pozières, capturing a ruined farm should have been a mere formality, but this was not the case. As the Australians advanced toward the farm, the Pozières ridge on the right and a dominating spur on the left hemmed them in. The German-held ridges either side gradually closed in on Mouquet Farm, funnelling the Australians into a narrow front. The restricted area meant the Australians could only attack with one or two battalions, while the Germans could respond with a concentrated bombardment from three directions.2

I Anzac Corps Intelligence didn’t know much about la ferme du Mouquet, other than that it had once been a large brick farmstead owned by a wealthy farmer, with a dairy and stables attached. As a result of the previous six weeks of fighting, only smashed brickwork, twisted wrought-iron gates, caved-in cellars, and broken roof beams remained. When the Germans swept through the Somme Valley in 1914, Monsieur Vandendriessche, the farm’s tenant, had probably shared the concerns of other French residents, but must have felt sure that his isolated farm would escape their interest. Yet the Germans started poking around the farm in early 1916 and immediately earmarked the farm as an important stronghold. For Major Hans von Fabeck, who was responsible for converting the neighbouring Thiepval into an impregnable fortress in April 1916, Mouquet Farm’s deep cellars and elevated location meant that it was ideally suited, along with the nearby Goat and Stuff redoubts, to protect the village.

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