is enough to show that it is a strong
position.

To the left of Fricourt, the spur rises slowly into a skyline. To the
right the lines droop down the spur to a valley, across a brook and a
road in the valley, and up a big bare humping chalk hill placed at
right angles to the spur on which Fricourt stands.

The spur on which Fricourt stands and the spur down which the lines
run both end at the valley in a steep drop. Just above the steep fall
our men fought very hard to push back the enemy a little towards
Fricourt, so that he might not see the lower part of the valley, or be
able to enfilade our lines on the other side of it. For about three
hundred yards here the space between the lines is filled with the
craters of mines exploded under the enemy's front line. In some cases,
we seized and held the craters; in others the craters were untenable
by either side. Under one of those held by us it was found that the
enemy had sunk a big counter-mine, which was excavated and ready for
charging at the time of the beginning of the battle, when Fricourt
fell. This part of the line is more thickly coated with earth than
most of the chalk hills of the battlefield. The craters lie in a blown
and dug up wilderness of heaps of reddish earth, pocked with
shell-holes, and tumbled with wire. The enemy lines are much broken
and ruined, their parapets thrown down, the mouths of their dugouts
blown in, and their pride abased.

[Illustration: A View of Fricourt]

The Fricourt position was one of the boasts of the enemy on this
front. Other places on the line, such as the Leipzig, the Schwaben,
and the trenches near Hamel, were strong, because they could be
supported by works behind them or on their flanks. Fricourt was strong
in itself, like Gommecourt. It was perhaps the only place in the field
of which it could be said that it was as strong as Gommecourt. As at
Gommecourt, it had a good natural glacis up to the front line, which
was deep, strong, and well wired. Behind the front line was a wired
second line, and behind that, the rising spur on which the village
stood, commanding both with machine-gun emplacements.

Fricourt was not captured by storm, but swiftly isolated and forced to
surrender. It held out not quite two days. It was the first first-rate
fortress taken by our men from the enemy in this engagement. In the
ruins, they saw for the first time the work which the enemy puts into
his main defences, and the skill and craft