Second Battle of Bapaume

Part of the Hundred Days Offensive of World War I

A New Zealand infantry battalion passing through recaptured Bapaume, 14 September 1918

Date	21 August – 3 September 1918
Location	Bapaume, France
Result	Allied victory

Belligerents

British Empire

German Empire

Commanders and leaders

George Harper

Otto von Below

British Empire

The Second Battle of Bapaume was a battle of the First World War that took place at Bapaume in France, from 21 August 1918 to 3 September 1918. It was a continuation of the Battle of Albert and is also referred to as the second phase of that battle. The British and Dominion attack was part of what was later known as the Allies' Hundred Days Offensive.

The Second Battle of Bapaume was carried out over a period of two weeks and involved the divisions of IV Corps; the British 5th, 37th, 42nd, and the 63rd Divisions along with the New Zealand Division. On 29 August, elements of the New Zealand Division, after heavy fighting in the days prior, occupied Bapaume as the defending Germans withdrew. It then pushed onto the Bancourt Ridge, to the east of Bapaume.

On 8 August 1918, the Hundred Days' Offensive commenced on the Western Front and it would prove to be the last major campaign of the First World War. It began with the Battle of Amiens, an attack by the Canadian and Australian Corps at Amiens, which rolled the German lines back 8 km (5.0 mi). The advance petered out after four days after the Germans began to regroup and shore up their defences. The commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, recognised that it was time to put pressure elsewhere on the German front and for this, decided to use General Julian Byng's Third Army. Haig decided that the Bapaume sector, with the town of Bapaume at its centre, was to be the new focus of operations.

...
Wikipedia