Battle of the Boar's Head

Battle of the Boar's Head
Part of the Western Front, World War I
Richebourg-l'Avoué area, 1914–1916
Date September 1914–1916 Location Artois, France Coordinates: 50°34′19″N 2°44′41″E / 50.57194°N 2.74472°E / 50.57194; 2.74472
Belligerents
British Empire	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Douglas Haig	General Erich von Falkenhayn
Strength
2 battalions
Casualties and losses
850–1,366
Richbourg (Boar's Head) Richebourg-l'Avoué, commune in the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France

The Battle of the Boar's Head was an attack on 30 June 1916 at Richebourg-l'Avoué in France, during the First World War. Troops of the British 39th Division of the XI Corps in the First Army, advanced to capture the Boar's Head, a salient held by the German 6th Army. Two battalions of the 116th Brigade, with one battalion providing carrying parties, attacked the German front position before dawn on 30 June. The British took and held the German front line trench and the second trench for several hours before retiring, having lost 850–1,366 casualties.

The operation was conducted when the British armies on the Western Front north of the Somme, supported the Fourth Army during the Battle of the Somme (1 July to 18 November). The British Third, First and Second armies conducted 310 raids against the Germans up to November 1916, harassing the Germans opposite, to give novice divisions experience of fighting on the Western Front, to inflict casualties and to prevent German troops from being transferred to the Somme. From 19 to 20 July, XI Corps conducted the much bigger Battle of Fromelles, where British and Australian troops suffered an even greater number of casualties.

On 1 June 1916, General Charles Monro, the First Army commander, briefed the corps commanders for when the Fourth Army and the French Sixth Army began the offensive on the Somme. The First Army was about 30 mi (48 km) north of the Somme and was to mislead the Germans, exhaust the forces opposite and reduce their efficiency during the preliminary bombardment on the Somme. On 7 June, the XI Corps commander, Lieutenant-General Richard Haking sent to Monro the corps plan to fulfil the diversion policy, writing that saps had been dug towards the German lines and assembly trenches from 1915 had been refurbished. The divisions of XI Corps had plans for eight raids, to involve gas, smoke and wire-cutting bombardments, to begin daily on 26 June until 10 July. A model of the German defences was built near each divisional headquarters (HQ) to be used in the planning of raids.