The Capture of Stuff Redoubt () was a tactical incident during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The redoubt had been built as part of the fortification of the Somme front by the German 2nd Army ( Fritz von Below) after the open warfare of 1914. On 1 July, the First Day on the Somme, troops of the 36th (Ulster) Division occupied part of the redoubt before being forced out by German counter-attacks. British troops were not able to reach the redoubt again until the Battle of Thiepval Ridge (26–28 September) when parties of the 11th (Northern) Division captured part of the redoubt. The rest of the redoubt was taken by the 25th Division during the Battle of the Ancre Heights (1 October – 11 November).
Some German officers thought that the blow to German morale was worse than news of the fall of Thiepval. The loss of the redoubt and the success of an attack by II Corps on Stuff Trench, beyond the redoubt, on 21 October exposed the Ancre valley and Grandcourt to British ground observation. The army group commander Crown Prince Rupprecht and Erich Ludendorff, the deputy Chief of the General Staff of the German army, wanted to retire from the salient that had formed from Saint-Pierre-Divion and Beaumont-Hamel but Below preferred to hold on since the remaining positions were strong and on high ground with good observation. The last big attack by the Reserve Army (renamed Fifth Army on 30 October) the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November) against these positions was a great success.
Background
Somme front, 1914–1915
The 26th (Württemberg) Reserve Division Franz von Soden) of the XIV Reserve Corps Hermann von Stein), arrived on the Somme in late September 1914, attempting to advance westwards towards Amiens. By 7 October, the advance had ended and temporary scrapes had been occupied. Fighting in the area from the Somme north to the Ancre, subsided into minor line-straightening attacks by both sides. The primacy of artillery had been established during the fighting of 1914 and the exploitation of artillery fire power in defensive fighting, required means of communication between the front line and artillery positions in the rear. Artillery organisation needed to be centralised to make sure that all guns in range engaged targets.
In late December 1915, Major Bornemann, commander of the 26th Division field artillery, wrote a report in which he described failures of communication, which led to an advantage created by the blowing of a mine being squandered by the artillery. Bornemann wrote that artillery battery observation posts had been left unmanned, on the assumption that they had been superseded by artillery liaison officers in the front line. Reporting had been inadequate due to complacency and reports should have been circulated to all headquarters rather than individual officers assuming that the information had been communicated. The artillery should avoid settling into routine firing, since prisoners had reported that its predictability made it easy to evade and limiting firing to the area in front of batteries should cease and oblique firing into adjacent sectors begin, to ensure that British artillery could not fire with impunity from the flanks. Concentrations of fire consumed too much ammunition on local targets and should be limited to provide ammunition for firing on other targets to disrupt British operations and to reassure German infantry that they would not be abandoned by the artillery.
Bornemann also wrote that retaliatory fire should be prompt and authority to order fire should be shared by all artillery officers, rather than relying on unreliable communications to request authority to fire on targets as they were observed. As an example, he recommended that if a British artillery battery was detected, it should be engaged with immediately. Co-operation with artillery observers in aircraft and balloons should be improved, with at least one target selected for bombardment in every aircraft sortie, for which the artillery commanders should make gridded drawings of targets within range. When British aircraft were overhead, battery positions should cease fire to remain hidden and German aircraft units should be contacted to drive the British away. Bornemann suggested that artillery group commanders should have control of all artillery ammunition allotted to the group and that artillery regimental headquarters should be responsible for replacing stocks and passing on demands for more ammunition to higher headquarters.
Somme fortifications, 1915 On the Western Front, General Erich Falkenhayn Chief of the General Staff at (OHL) instituted a construction plan in January 1915, by which the western armies would be provided with field fortifications, built to a common system to economise on infantry, while offensive operations were conducted on the Eastern Front. Barbed-wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt wide to two belts wide and about apart. The front line had been increased from one trench to three, apart, the first trench to be occupied by sentry groups, the second () to accommodate the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves.
The trenches were to be traversed and have sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts were to be deepened from to , apart and large enough for An intermediate line of strong points (the ) about behind the front line was also built. Communication trenches were to be dug back to the reserve position, renamed the second position, which was as well-built and wired as the first line. The second position was built beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop and move field artillery forward before assaulting the line.
German artillery was organised in a series of (barrage sectors); each infantry officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries ready to engage fleeting targets. A telephone system was built, with lines buried deep for behind the front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses which the rebuilding had not remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The defences were crowded towards the front trench, with a regiment having two battalions near the front trench system and the reserve battalion divided between the and the second line, all within of the front line.
1916
After the (Autumn Battle) in Champagne during late 1915, a third line another back from the was begun in February 1916 and was nearly complete when the Battle of the Somme began. More fortifications were built, especially in the intermediate, second and third positions, near the and redoubts. Stuff Redoubt () was in the second position, north-west of (Goat) Redoubt, also in the second position and east of Redoubt. Beyond the redoubt was Stuff Trench () on the far slope, which led from Redoubt eastwards to Stuff Redoubt and on to Courcelette. The redoubt was about halfway between Pozières and Grandcourt.
New battery positions were built to accommodate artillery reinforcements, dugouts were deepened and extra exits were added. Engineers sited and designed new trenches and stringently inspected the building work performed by the infantry. In early March 1916 and from the chief engineer of the 2nd Army inspected the first position in the area of the 26th Reserve Division, who found that only in the area north of the Ancre, were there enough shell-proof concrete posts. On 12 May, the 2nd Guard Reserve Division was moved out of reserve, to defend Serre and Gommecourt, which reduced the frontage of the XIV Reserve Corps and its six divisions from between Maricourt and Serre, making the average divisional sector north of the Albert–Bapaume road wide, while the frontages south of the road were wide. By July 1916, the German front line from Thiepval to St Pierre Divion was obstructed by sixteen rows of barbed wire and the second line lay behind five rows. Shell-proof dug outs deep, could accommodate all of the trench garrison.
Prelude
1 July
Morning
+Weather(23 June – 1 July 1916) Date Rainmm Temp( °F) 232.079–55wind 241.072–52dull 251.071–54wind 266.072–52dull 278.068–54dull 282.068–50dull 290.166–52dullwind 300.072–48dullwind 10.079–52fine At the 36th (Ulster) Division troops formed up in no man's land and moved to within of the German front trench. The artillery and mortar bombardment lifted off the front trench at and the Irish advanced steadily, crossing the front trench with few losses but then the German counter-barrage fell on the rear of the first line and the support companies. As soon as the British guns stopped, machine-gun fire from Thiepval cemetery caught the third support battalion on the left flank. The foremost infantry pressed on, reached the B line at and took a large number of prisoners but German troops emerged from dugouts in the A line behind the 108th Brigade, whose moppers-up had been killed by machine-gun fire. The leading waves continued to advance, reached the C line and then the corner of Redoubt at by when the supporting battalion survivors had occupied their objectives but cross-fire from German machine-guns then prevented movement forwards or backwards.
Reserve Infantry Regiment 99 (RIR 99) of Reserve Infantry Brigade 52 (General von Auwäter), holding the line north of Thiepval, was broken through and the attackers rushed Redoubt. The garrison, a support company standing by to reinforce the front defences, was surprised and surrendered after brief resistance. The centre battalion of RIR 99 had been destroyed in the breakthrough and taken prisoner. An attack towards the Grandcourt Line ran into the British barrage and defensive fire from German guns on the north side of the Ancre near Miraumont and from and , either side of the Ancre. German machine-gunners in Grandcourt and (Beaucourt Redoubt) opened fire and the troops tried to dig in or fell back to Redoubt and the Line, which ran from the redoubt down the north edge of the ridge to the Ancre.
The left hand battalion of RIR 99 had repulsed the attack on Thiepval but the centre and right, from the village to the Ancre south of St Pierre Divion, had been overrun, the troops having been trapped underground and taken prisoner. Observers in the Grandcourt Line were unable to see the breakthrough because of smoke and dust in the air. Only when the British advanced on the Grandcourt Line, was the identity of the troops that could be seen in the area discovered. As soon as the British bombardment lifted, the only reserves nearby, the recruit battalion of IR 180 and a machine-gun company, occupied the Grandcourt Line around Thiepval.
By runners had reported the fall of the C line but because of the defeats of the 32nd Division on the right flank at Thiepval and the VIII Corps divisions on the north bank of the Ancre, Nugent tried to get permission to cancel the 107th Brigade attack on the D line but was over-ruled, as new attacks were being arranged on the flanks. About later, X Corps HQ ordered the advance to stop until the situation on the flanks was clearer but the stop order failed to reach the 107th Brigade, which advanced for about in a "wild and desperate venture", before the survivors were repulsed from the objective by German troops in the D line (Grandcourt Trench). German counter-attacks on the left flank from St Pierre Divion, were forced back several times by the remaining men of the three battalions on the left flank; on the right flank, Mouquet Switch Trench was reconnoitred and found empty.