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The Welsh were attacking Mametz Wood.
They were handled, as Marbot said of his men in a Napoleonic battle,
"like turnips." Battalion commanders received orders in direct
conflict with one another. Bodies of Welshmen were advanced, and then
retired, and left to lie nakedly without cover, under dreadful fire.
The 17th Division, under General Pilcher, did not attack at the
expected time. There was no co-ordination of divisions; no knowledge
among battalion officers of the strategy or tactics of a battle in
which their men were involved.
"Goodness knows what's happening," said an officer I met near Mametz.
He had been waiting all night and half a day with a body of troops who
had expected to go forward, and were still hanging about under
harassing fire.
On July 9th Contalmaison was taken. I saw that attack very clearly, so
clearly that I could almost count the bricks in the old chateau set in
a little wood, and saw the left-hand tower knocked off by the direct
hit of a fifteen-inch shell.


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