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Ancre, January – March 1917
After the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November 1916), British attacks on the Somme front were stopped by the weather and military operations by both sides were mostly restricted to survival in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes. As preparations for the offensive at Arras continued, the British attempted to keep German attention on the Somme front. British operations on the Ancre from 10 January – 22 February 1917, forced the Germans back 5 miles (8.0 km) on a 4-mile (6.4 km) front, ahead of the schedule of the Alberich Bewegung (Alberich Manoeuvre/Operation Alberich) and eventually took 5,284 prisoners. On 22/23 February, the Germans fell back another 3 miles (4.8 km) on a 15-mile (24 km) front. The Germans then withdrew from much of the R. I Stellung to the R. II Stellung on 11 March, forestalling a British attack, which was not noticed by the British until dark on 12 March; the main German withdrawal from the Noyon salient to the Hindenburg Line (Operation Alberich) commenced on schedule on 16 March.
Defensive positions held by the German army on the Somme after November 1916 were in poor condition, the garrisons were exhausted and censors of correspondence from front-line soldiers reported tiredness and low morale. The situation left the German command doubtful that the army could withstand a resumption of the battle. The German defence of the Ancre began to collapse under British attacks, which on 28 January caused Rupprecht to urge that the retirement to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) begin. Ludendorff rejected the proposal next day but British attacks on the First Army, particularly the Action of Miraumont (also known as the Battle of Boom Ravine, 17–18 February) caused Rupprecht on the night of 22 February to order a preliminary withdrawal of c. 4 miles (6.4 km) to the R. I Stellung (R. I Position). On 24 February the Germans withdrew, protected by rear guards, over roads in relatively good condition which were then destroyed. The German withdrawal was helped by a thaw, which turned roads behind the British front into bogs and by disruption to the railways which supplied the Somme front. On the night of 12 March the Germans withdrew from the R. I Stellung between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit and the British reached the R. II Stellung (R. II Position) on 13 March.
The Royal British Legion with the British Embassy in Paris and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, commemorate the battle on 1 July each year, at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. For their efforts on the first day of the battle, The 1st Newfoundland Regiment was given the name "The Royal Newfoundland Regiment" by George V on 28 November 1917. The first day of the Battle of the Somme is commemorated in Newfoundland, remembering the "Best of the Best" at 11:00 a.m. on the Sunday nearest to 1 July. The Somme is remembered in Northern Ireland due to the participation of the 36th (Ulster) Division and commemorated by veterans' groups and by unionist/Protestant groups such as the Orange Order. During the Northern Irish Troubles the date was associated primarily with the Orange Order and regarded by some as part of the 'marching season', with connection to the Somme. The British Legion and others commemorate the battle on 1 July.
Since the 1960s the "futility" view, that the battle was an Anglo-French disaster has been criticised as a myth. In recent years a nuanced version of the original orthodoxy has arisen, which does not seek to minimise the human cost of the battle but sets it in the context of industrial warfare, compares it to the wars in the United States from 1861–1865 and Europe from 1939–1945 and describes the development of the armies of 1914 into modern all-arms organisations, using the scientific application of fire-power on land and in the air, to defeat comparable opponents in a war of exhaustion. Little German and French writing has been translated, leaving much of the continental perspective and detail of German and French military operations inacce