Battle of Le Transloy

Battle of Le Transloy
Part of the Battle of the Somme of the First World War
Battle of the Somme 1 July – 18 November 1916
Date 1–18 October 1916 Location Le Transloy, France Coordinates: 50°3′26.6″N 2°53′15.8″E / 50.057389°N 2.887722°E / 50.057389; 2.887722 Result Indecisive
Belligerents
British Empire  Canada  New Zealand  Newfoundland  United Kingdom	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Ferdinand Foch Douglas Haig Ferdinand Foch Henry Rawlinson Émile Fayolle Joseph Alfred Micheler	Erich Ludendorff Kronprinz Rupprecht Fritz von Below Max von Gallwitz
Strength
Fourth Army: 14 divisions Reserve Army: 4 Canadian divisions
Casualties and losses
October: British: 57,722 (Fourth and Reserve Army total) French: 37,626 (Sixth and Tenth Army total)	October: 78,500 (1st and 2nd Army total)
Le Transloy Le Transloy, a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department, Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France

 British Empire

The Battle of Le Transloy was the last offensive of the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the 1916 Battle of the Somme in France, during the First World War. The battle was fought in conjunction with attacks by the French Tenth and Sixth armies on the southern flank and the Reserve/5th Army on the northern flank, against Heeresgruppe Rupprecht (Field Marshal Rupprecht of Bavaria) created on 28 August, from the 1st and 2nd armies of the dissolved armeegruppe Gallwitz-Somme and the 6th and 7th armies. General Ferdinand Foch the commander of groupe des armées du nord (Northern Army Group) and co-ordinator of the armies on the Somme, was unable to continue the sequential attacks by the Anglo-French armies achieved in September, because persistent rain, mist and fog grounded aircraft, turned the battlefield into a swamp and greatly increased the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front over the few roads in the area and the land that had been devastated since 1 July.

The German 2nd and 1st armies on the Somme managed a recovery after the string of defeats in September, with fresh divisions to replace exhausted troops and more aircraft, artillery and ammunition diverted from the battle at Verdun and stripped from other parts of the Western Front. Command of the German Air Service (Die Fliegertruppen) was centralised and the new Luftstreitkräfte (German Air Force) was able to challenge Anglo-French air superiority with the reinforcements and new, superior fighter aircraft. The German flyers further reduced the ability of the Anglo-French airmen to support the armies with artillery-observation and contact patrols, in the rare periods of clear weather. The German armies lost much less ground and had fewer casualties in October than in September (the costliest month of the battle) but the proportion of casualties increased from 78.9–82.3 percent of the Anglo-French total. The reinforcement of the Somme front, with troops and equipment from Verdun also contributed to the German defeat in the First Offensive Battle of Verdun (1ère Bataille Offensive de Verdun 20 October – 2 November) and the loss of forts Douaumont and Vaux.