First Battle of Dernancourt 1918
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 28 March 1918 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1918 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Location | France | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| Participants | Australia, German Empire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 49.9747, 2.6317 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The First Battle of Dernancourt was fought on 28 March 1918 near Dernancourt in northern France during World War I. It involved a force of the German 2nd Army attacking elements of the VII Corps, which included British and Australian troops, and resulted in a complete defeat of the German assault.
The Australian 3rd and 4th Divisions had been sent south from Belgium to help stem the tide of the German spring offensive towards Amiens and, with the British 35th Division, they held a line west and north of the Ancre river and the area between the Ancre and Somme, forming the southern flank of the Third Army. Much of the VII Corps front line consisted of a series of posts strung out along a railway embankment between Albert and Buire-sur-l'Ancre. The main German assault force was the 50th Reserve Division of the XXIII Reserve Corps, which concentrated its assault on the line between Albert and Dernancourt, attacking off the line of march after a short artillery preparation. Supporting attacks were to be launched by the 13th Division further west. Some German commanders considered success unlikely unless the embankment was weakly held, and the commander of the German 2nd Army ordered the attack to be postponed, but that message did not reach the assaulting troops in time.
The Germans attacked at dawn under the cover of fog, but other than one small penetration by a company in the early morning that was quickly repelled, partly due to the actions of Sergeant Stanley…
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article First Battle of Dernancourt (revision 1370618592), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Browse more: battles in France · Europe · World War I era battles