Fourth Army

He spared the material and the guns to cooperate with the British on the Somme, and later he sent to General Foch, commander of the Northern Group of French Armies, the unsurpassed Iron Corps from Nancy and the famous Colonial Corps.

It was in March 1916, when suspense about Verdun was at its height, that Sir Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief of the Group of British Armies, and Sir Henry Rawlinson, who was to be his right-hand man through the offensive as commander of the Fourth Army, went over the ground opposite the British front on the Somme and laid the plans for their attack, and Sir Henry received instructions to begin the enormous preparations for what was to become the greatest battle of all time.

It included as the first step the building of many miles of railway and highways for the transport of the enormous requisite quantities of guns and materials.

The Somme winds through rich alluvial lands at this point and around a number of verdant islands in its leisurely course.

Seven ten came, and seven twenty, and still no more light.

It was too late now to seek another hill, and if we had sought one we should have had no better view.

At least we were seeing as much as the commander of the Fourth Army in his dugout not far away.

The artillery fire increased.