The First attack on Bullecourt (11 April 1917) was a military operation on the Western Front during the First World War. The 1st Anzac Corps of the British Fifth Army attacked in support of the Third Army, engaged in the Battle of Arras (9 April to 16 May 1917) further north. The Report of the Battles Nomenclature Committee (1921) called operations subsidiary to the main Battle of Arras the Flanking Operation to the Arras Offensive.
To compensate for the lack of time and artillery, a company of twelve tanks would lead the attackers into the Hindenburg Line defences by crushing the barbed wire in front of the defences of the XIV Reserve Corps (). The tanks were late and the attack of the 4th Australian Division was postponed but the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division did not receive the message and patrols advanced into the Bullecourt defences, suffering 162 casualties before they returned to the British front line, in what became known as the "Buckshee Battle".
Next day the attack on Bullecourt went ahead, despite reservations, although several tanks broke down and others went off course. Both Australian brigades got into the German front position but were cut off and gradually overwhelmed, only a few Australians managing to break out. The Australians suffered including against casualties.
The Australian division and corps commanders apologised to the survivors and their German equivalents received the . The survivors expressed bitterness and a great distrust of the tanks, despite them starting a panic among some of the German defenders; Australians blamed the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division for allegedly leaving them in the lurch. Australian distrust of tanks and of General Hubert Gough, the Fifth Army commander, lingered for much of the remainder of the war.
Background Hindenburg Line
General () Erich von Falkenhayn head of the German General Staff (, OHL) was dismissed on 29 August 1916 and replaced by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff. The (the new supreme commanders) ended the offensive at Verdun on the Western Front and requested proposals for a new shorter defensive position in the Noyon Salient. Crown Prince Rupprecht, commander of Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria (), was ordered to prepare a rear defensive line and work on the new (Siegfried Position/Hindenburg Line) began. As the situation on the Somme deteriorated, Hindenburg ordered that the Somme front be given priority in the west for troops and supplies.
By the end of September, Rupprecht had no reserves left on the Somme and another thirteen fresh divisions were sent to the British sector, troops being scraped up wherever they could be found. For the (defensive battle) expected in 1917, the Hindenburg Line was to be built across the base of the Noyon Salient from Neuville-Vitasse near Arras, through St Quentin and Laon to the Chemin des Dames (the Ladies' Path) ridge. The new fortified areas (, similar to ones built on the Russian front) were intended to be precautionary measures () to shorten the Western Front and economise on troops, creating more reserves against the offensives expected in 1917. The had the potential to release the greatest number of troops and was begun first.
Operation Alberich
Ludendorff ordered 9 February to be the first day of the (Alberich Manoeuvre) and 16 March the first marching day. On 17 March, the 1st Army, at the north end of the Bapaume Salient, withdrew swiftly; was abandoned by 18 March and next day Boyelles and Boiry-Becquerelle were evacuated. The withdrawal to the (Hindenburg Line), except for outposts and raids mounted on British outposts during 20 and 21 March, had begun. Bapaume was abandoned, many of its houses being set on fire. Next day, parties of Germans at Beugny in the fought until nightfall then slipped away. A party at Vaulx-Vraucourt was surprised and driven back to Lagnicourt, which was lost on 26 March. A German counter-attack from Noreuil and a British attack on Bucquoy were repulsed.
On 17 March, withdrawals by the 2nd Army south of the Somme began; by 18 March, the other German armies and the southern wing of the 6th Army began to withdraw from of the old front line [ as the crow flies]. The Somme River and canal crossings from Offoy to Péronne were destroyed and pools wide formed near road embankments, making crossings anywhere else impossible, the damage being made worse by the spring thaw. On 18 March the main body of German troops reached the Hindenburg Line () where work was still being done to remedy defects in the original position. Outpost villages close to the south of Quéant had to be held for longer than expected to complete the additional defences. Heudicourt, Sorel and Fins were lost on 30 March. The northern outpost villages were captured on 2 April and Lempire fell three days later.
XIV Reserve Corps
During the Battle of the Somme in 1916, German divisions had quickly become exhausted and it had proved impractical to replace corps headquarters and their constituent divisions at the rate necessary to rest tired divisions; corps HQs remained on the Somme and took over fresh divisions as they arrived. By 1917 the connexion between Corps HQs and their component divisions had been dissolved on the rest of the Western Front and territorial titles introduced. After the retreat to the , the XIV Reserve Corps (, [Lieutenant-General] Otto von Moser from 12 March 1917) held the from Croisilles to Mœuvres. The 27th (Württemberg) Division ( Heinrich von Maur) had spent February and March as a training division at Valenciennes and then been sent to relieve the 26th Reserve Division from Bullecourt to Quéant.
The 27th (Württemberg) Division was unimpressed by the new positions, the trenches and wire having no deep dugouts, ( shelters, pillboxes to the British) or rear defences. The 26th Reserve Division had spent the previous two weeks digging in but had made uneven progress. Over the weekend of 7–8 April, Infantry Regiment 124 (IR 124) of the 27th (Württemberg) Division took over the centre of the divisional sector in front of Riencourt from IR 180 (26th Reserve Division) three companies of I Battalion on the right (western) side, three on the left and two in reserve in the cellars under the village. The cellars did not have protected exits, making them vulnerable to artillery-fire. II Battalion was in reserve in Cagnicourt but the lack of dugouts prevented the troops being organised in greater depth. Infantry Regiment 120 (IR 120) took over on the right (western) flank and Grenadier Regiment 123 (GR 123) on the left (eastern) flank around Quéant. The was on a reverse slope and the troops in the front position could not see far to the south-west, where the British Fifth Army was closing up to the Hindenburg Line from Écoust St Mein and the Quéant railway embankment. Observation posts were established forward of the trenches and reconnaissance patrols kept watch.
Prelude
Fifth Army
The original British plan was for the Fifth Army to co-operate with the Third Army attack into the salient formed around Bapaume during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line () forestalled the British attack and the Fifth Army was ordered to push back German rearguards and prepare to attack the Hindenburg Line between Quéant and Bullecourt, to support the Third Army offensive, a much more difficult task. The Fifth Army had been reduced to two corps and stripped of artillery; bringing up the remaining guns and ammunition over the supply desert created by German demolitions was a slow process. The Hindenburg Line was far more formidable than the decrepit defences abandoned during the withdrawal. If the Fifth Army penetrated the Hindenburg Line the task of the Third Army, extending its attacks on 11 April southwards to the St Martin sur Cojeul and Wancourt areas, to push south-eastwards down the Arras–Cambrai road, would be eased.
Bullecourt was from the road at Vis-en-Artois and under at Fontaine-lès-Croisilles, the first objective of the Cavalry Corps advancing in front of the Third Army. Gough suggested that the Fifth Army could support the attack but for lack of means, only on a narrow front and Bullecourt was substituted for Quéant, which was a much more formidable objective, behind four defensive positions. The attack would then pivot to the right flank to capture the junction of the Hindenburg Line and the Drocourt–Quéant Switch Line (). If successful, the 4th Cavalry Division would pass through to meet the Cavalry Corps from Arras. Fifth Army attacks on 2 April captured the German outpost villages from Doignies to Croisilles and Gough ordered that risks be taken to advance as much heavy artillery as possible. On 5 April Gough issued orders to the two Fifth Army corps V Corps (Lieutenant-General Edward Fanshawe) and 1st Anzac Corps (Lieutenant-General William Birdwood) for an attack on a front with Bullecourt in the centre.
The village of Riencourt was the second objective and Hendecourt the third, where the 4th Cavalry Division was to advance to rendezvous with the Cavalry Corps. The Fifth Army received D Company, Tank Corps, five tanks for each corps and two in army reserve. The heavy guns were delayed by German road demolitions and the field artillery had to be moved in relays due to a shortage of horses. The 4th Australian Division (Major-General William Holmes) was not able to use all its seven artillery brigades until 8 April, even after hauling field guns with crews and ammunition by lorry. On the right of V Corps to the north, the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division (Major-General Walter Braithwaite) took over from the 7th Division on 5 April; both divisional artilleries moved forward in stages and began wire cutting on 7 April. Australian patrols found no gaps in the wire, which was about deep, to the east of Bullecourt.
8–9 April
The Hindenburg Line defences enclosing the village of Bullecourt formed a re-entrant for about to the (Balcony Trench) around Quéant, defended by the German 27th (Württemberg) Division. On 8 April it was announced that wire cutting, begun on 5 April, would take another eight days. The Third Army began the Battle of Arras on 9 April with great success. Lieutenant-Colonel John Hardress-Lloyd, the commander of D Battalion, Tank Corps and the company attached to the Fifth Army suggested that rather than spreading the tanks along the attack front, they be concentrated to roll up the wire, creating a wide breach instead of several narrow ones. The twelve tanks should attack by surprise on a front of , only opening fire when they were through the wire. Gough ordered the tanks to attack the next day, 10 April, on a front of about between Bullecourt and Quéant, leaving no time for rehearsals with the 4th Australian Division.