On September 15th the German command had another shock when the whole
line of the British troops on the Somme front south of the Ancre rose
out of their trenches and swept over the German defenses in a tide.
Those defenses broke hopelessly, and the waves dashed through. Here
and there, as on the German left at Morval and Lesboeufs, the bulwarks
stood for a time, but the British pressed against them and round them.
On the German right, below the little river of the Ancre, Courcelette
fell, and Martinpuich, and at last, as I have written, High Wood,
which the Germans desired to hold at all costs, and had held against
incessant attacks by great concentration of artillery, was captured
and left behind by the London men. A new engine of war had come as a
demoralizing influence among German troops, spreading terror among
them on the first day out of the tanks. For the first time the Germans
were outwitted in inventions of destruction; they who had been
foremost in all engines of death.
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