attack on July 1, 1916, which began the battle of
the Somme. That battle, so far as it concerns our own troops, may be
divided into two sectors: one, to the south of the Ancre River, a
sector of advance, the other, to the north of the Ancre River, a
containing sector, in which no advance was possible. Gommecourt
itself, which made a slight but important salient in the enemy line in
the containing sector, was the most northern point attacked in that
first day's fighting.

Though the Gommecourt position is not impressive to look at, most of
our soldiers are agreed that it was one of the very strongest points
in the enemy's fortified line on the Western Front. French and Russian
officers, who have seen it since the enemy left it, have described it
as "terrible" and as "the very devil." There can be no doubt that it
was all that they say.

The country in that part is high-lying chalk downland, something like
the downland of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, though generally barer
of trees, and less bold in its valleys. Before the war it was
cultivated, hedgeless land, under corn and sugar-beet. The chalk is
usually well-covered, as in Buckinghamshire, with a fat clay. As the
French social tendency is all to the community, there are few lonely
farms in that countryside as there would be with us. The inhabitants
live in many compact villages, each with a church, a market-place, a
watering-place for stock, and sometimes a chateau and park. Most of
the villages are built of red brick, and the churches are of stone,
not (as in the chalk countries with us) of dressed flint. Nearly all
the villages are planted about with orchards; some have copses of
timber trees. In general, from any distance, the villages stand out
upon the downland as clumps of woodland. Nearly everywhere near the
battlefield a clump of orchard, with an occasional dark fir in it, is
the mark of some small village. In time of peace the Picardy farming
community numbered some two or three hundred souls. Gommecourt and
Hebuterne were of the larger kind of village.

A traveller coming towards Gommecourt as Mr. Liveing came to it, from
the west, sees nothing of the Gommecourt position till he reaches
Hebuterne. It is hidden from him by the tilt of the high-lying chalk
plateau, and by the woodland and orchards round Hebuterne village.
Passing through this village, which is now deserted, save for a few
cats, one comes to a fringe of orchard, now deep in grass, and of