The Occurrences at Regina Trench—Fall 1916

View Today from the German Regina Trench Position,
Canadian Forces Would Be Attacking Up This Slope

1 October–18 November 1916

The Regina Trench system dominated the area held by the Canadians after the initial attack at Thiepval on 26 September. Regina Trench had been part of the original Thiepval objectives, which called for the capture of the system by the end of the day on the 26th, but like most of the battles fought on the Somme, the attack had devolved to a multi-week slog, as the British army tried in vain to take increasingly smaller chunks of territory.  As October broke incessant cold rain arrived and began soaking the troops.

Aerial View of Regina Trench

The 3000m system (reputedly the longest trench on the Western Front) was perfectly placed for defense, being slightly over the top of Thiepval ridge, and surrounded by miles of thick barbed wire. To take Regina Trench, the Canadians would have to advance in full view of the defenders up the slope, with no options for outflanking and massed in a tight area of attack. Pre-attack bombardments were largely unsuccessful in removing the wire and many shells fell short as the Canadian gunners struggled to hit their target. Byng would again be calling on the beleaguered 2nd Division, fresh from the attempt to take Thiepval Ridge in September, to take Regina Trench. Despite protestations from the divisional commanders Turner and Lipsett, and an additional protest from Byng himself, Gough refused to call off the attack, and the 2nd  and 3rd Divisions would go forward into Regina Trench on 1 October at 3:15 p.m.

Click on Map to Enlarge

The German Marine Brigade, an elite group originally stationed in Belgium, had been moved to the Somme as the German regiments slowly weakened from loss of men, and were stationed at Regina Trench. The attack on 1 October briefly took control of Kenora Trench and part of the eastern end of Regina Trench proper, but both penetrations were pushed out by the Marines by 2 October. Bad weather and low visibility delayed the next attack until 8 October, though the Canadian barrage continued during this time, always trying to remove chunks of the barbed wire that had proved so formidable to the 2nd and 3rd Divisions on 1 October.

The attack on 8 October would be carried out much as the failed attack on 1 October, this time with the 1st and 3rd Divisions. Both went over the top before dawn behind a creeping barrage towards the maze of trenches making up the Regina system. Most of the battalions would run again into uncut barbed wire, which funneled them into concentrated zones of German machine gun fire. Both attacks, on the Quadrilateral and Regina Trench proper, were ultimately repelled as the Canadians were pushed back to their jumping off points.

Piper James Richardson Was Killed Leading
His Unit During the Attack of 8 October
and Later Received the Victoria Cross

In some locations along the line Canadian troops were killed by the enemy as soon as they went over the top. The Canadians suffered 770 casualties out of the 1100 men who took part in the attack (70% casualty rate), yet somehow, they managed to return with 240 POWs. They were also able to dig a trench forward from their own original front line; that new trench was linked with the 23rd British Division on their right, so the attack was not entirely a loss.  The Commanding Officer of the 4th Bn, however,  considered the attack a failure and his unit’s war diary provides the reasons for it: (i) the inability to secure the entire objective, (ii) the exhaustion of the supply of Mills bombs—they are crucial to trench clearing, (iii) the lack of capacity to successfully reinforce and resupply, and (iv) the uncut German wire. 

German Prisoners Captured at Regina Trench

A combined British and Canadian attack on 21 October would finally see a large part of Regina Trench captured by the Canadian 4th Division, and many German prisoners taken. It would not be until 10–11 November that the final western section of the trench would be captured during a lightning night attack by battalions of the 4th Division. The same division would be called upon to take Desire Trench, the final support trench in the Regina system on 18 November, which they would accomplish in four successive waves, following their creeping barrage closely. Unlike the early attacks on Regina, Desire was taken relatively easily, though fighting was still fierce in some areas.  This attack marked the official end of the Battle of the Somme.

Artillery Played a Critical Role in the Final Capture of
Regina Trench

Lessons

After Thiepval and the first attempt to take Regina Trench, General Gough had released a “Memorandum on Attacks” addressing many of the problems that had arisen, and calling for a more platoon based organizational structure empowering leaders at the company and platoon level to make decisions on how to reach their objectives as the need arose, instead of waiting on high command. Gough also called for better organization of reserves and using those groups who had already taken their objectives to better maintain the force of battle; almost all the battles fought by the British on the Somme had suffered particularly in this regard, with reserves held back behind the front lines and who could not move quickly enough to support those objectives already taken. In 1917, the re-ogranized Canadian Corps would use this “leapfrog” technique in every battle, greatly increasing their ability to take and hold objectives.

Aftermath

In the end, Regina Trench would cost thousands of Canadian lives; in total, the Canadian Corps counted over 24,000 casualties during the time it was on the Somme, almost all in the area surrounding Courcelette, Thiepval Ridge and Regina Trench. Over 2,200 Canadian soldiers are buried at the Regina Trench Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, about half of whom are unidentified.

Regina Trench, CWGC Cemetery

One soldier, Charles Douie, who had fought at these battles on the Ancre Heights, wrote in The Weary Road in 1929:

Here above the Ancre lie many of the most gallant of my regiment, men who were my friends, men whose memory I shall revere to the end of time. Some of them were soldiers by profession; others had turned aside from their chosen avocations in obediences to a call which might not be denied… they have passed into silence. We hear their voices no more. Yet it must be that somewhere the music of those voices lingers. . . 

Sources:  The Vimy Foundation and Valour Canada