The Battle of the Ancre Heights was a prolonged battle of attrition in October 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Lieutenant GeneralHubert Gough's Reserve Army had finally managed to break out of the positions it had occupied since the start of the Somme fighting (1 July) and Gough intended to maintain the pressure on the German forces on the high ground above the River Ancre. However, in three weeks of fighting the greatest advance achieved was little over 1,000 yards.
The Canadian Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Julian Byng, was heavily involved in the fighting on the Ancre heights. The Canadians were far from impressed with Gough's conduct of the battle and expressed reluctance to serve under his command again. In 1917, when the corps was commanded by a Canadian, General Arthur Currie, and had endured the hell of Passchendaele, this dislike, which had been born on the Somme, turned to outright refusal.
The battle of the Ancre heights was the prelude to the final act on the Somme, the Battle of the Ancre, which began on 13 November.
In one significant respect, the Battle of the Somme was a major strategic success for the British as on 12 July, in response to the Somme fighting and the situation in the east, Falkenhayn called off the German offensive at Verdun.
The attack, known as the Battle of Bazentin Ridge, was aimed at capturing the German second defensive position which ran along the crest of the ridge from Pozières, on the Albert–Bapaume road, southeast towards the villages of Guillemont and Ginchy.
Prior to the battle, Germany had regarded Britain as a naval power and discounted her as a military force to be reckoned with, believing Germany's major enemies were France and Russia.
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