The Battle of Bazentin Ridge, launched by the British Fourth Army at dawn on 14 July 1916, marked the start of the second phase of the Battle of the Somme. Dismissed beforehand by one French commander as "an attack organized for amateurs by amateurs", it turned out to be "hugely successful" for the British, in complete contrast to the disaster of the first day on the Somme. However, like the first day, the British failed to exploit their advantage in the wake of the victory and as German resistance stiffened, a period of bloody attrition commenced.
Read more about Battle Of Bazentin Ridge: Prelude, Preliminary Operations, Planning, Dawn Attack, High Wood, Aftermath
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“Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain’s door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.”
—Thomas Buchanan Read (1822–1872)
“All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)