LAND & WATER 
October 12, 1916 
The Salient of Beaucourt 
By Hilaire Bclloc 
WE saw last week the importance of the junction 
Achiet Le Grand upon the railway north of 
the present British Hne near Le Sars and of 
the road centre of Bapaume norti;--'ast of 
the same. 
There is another aspect of the situation which has not 
been dealt with yet. and that is the position of the enemy 
in what I may call the Beaucourt sahent. I jiroposc that 
name from the position of the hamlet and railway station 
of Beaucourt which mark its tip. 
Before the great offensive on the Somme bt-gan the 
line which the enemy held ran, it will be remembered, as 
does the thick line upon the accompanying Map 1. That 
is. it ran thus so far as the northern part of tlie British 
sector was concerned. 
Neglecting for the moment what has taken place upon 
the rest of the thirty odd mile? of front, and considering 
only this restricted field, that front now runs as does the 
dotted line upon the same Sketch I. The German 
front has been swung round over an angle of qo degrees, 
and where the enemy held one level line of positions he 
now holds an angle which is, roughly speaking, a right 
angle. 
HcbutoW 
ALBERT 
In other words, a very pronounced salient has been 
created to his disadvantage. All this is said qv.ite apart 
from other disadvantages of the new position, the chief 
of which is, of course, that on the new side of the 
salient his trenches are rapidly and therefore 
necessarily insufficiently constructed ; from Gommecourt 
right down to north of Thicpval, from A to B he holds 
his old organisation which he has had two years 
to consolidate, but on the new line from B to C he is hold- 
ing trenches which he has had at the most a few weeks 
to prepare. But even if this new side of his salient was as 
■strong as the old it would still be a point of capital im- 
■portance that he was thus thrust into a forward angle of 
such prominence and so sharp. 
With that point well in mind let us proceed to ask Our- 
selves how in this modern trench warfare the danger of 
■holding such a salient appears ; in what degree and after 
about what acuteness of angle it may become untenable. 
There is here some danger of a misunderstanding which 
has arisen more than once in the study of the present 
campaign from not correcting observation upon the map 
with common sense. This misunderstanding consists in 
considering only the sharpness or shape of a salient and 
not the much more important factor of its scale. A salient, 
for instance, such as the Germans hold in the Woeuvrc, 
generally called the Salient of St. Mihiel, is not harder to 
hold than a straight line. It is too wide for any 
effective fire to be delivered across it ; and so long as its 
extreme point is not too shari) it can be held with the 
same forces and under the same conditions as a continu- 
ous line would be. Except when there is a war of move- 
ment, as during the Russian retreat of last year, a very 
large salient of this kind — what may be called a strategical 
salient — can be held under the modern conditions of the 
defensive just as well as a continuous line. Most of 
those studying the war (and I include myself) fell into the 
error during its earliest phases of misunderstanding that 
point, for we were still influenced by the traditions of a 
normal war of movement, and had not come to regard the 
fighting in the West as a siege. 
Conversely, a very small salient, the moment it 
comes to be sharp, is doomed for several reasons. 
First because the opponent takes the guns which 
defend it in reverse ; he uncovers the accidents 
of ground upon which they depend for their security. 
Next he comes to enfilade trenches the trace of which 
was drawn up towards the face of the old position. 
Lastly for what it is worth — ^but it is no small factor 
(though not a decisive one) — the oj^iponent's guns take 
the trenchis in reverse as well as by their frontal fire. 
The point is quite elementary, and I think obviou?, 
but perhaps a diagram will do no harm. Suppose you 
have here on Sketch II the dotted line to represent aver- 
age effective range for the heavy artillery of various 
calibres, and the positions of these batteries to be at the 
points marked i-i. Then a force trying to hold the salient 
A-B-C is adversely subject to fire both directl}- upon the 
fronts of the trenches B-C, A.-B and in reverse upon the 
back of those trenches. Further, in a complex system 
of trenches drawn up as at E-F for meeting an attack 
coming from the direction of the arrows G, it is clear that 
when a new attack has developed from the direction 
of the arrows H, a very heavy proportion of the trench 
work which was formerly shielded, is now exposed. 
You cannot construct works which are equally strong 
against frontal fire and flank fire. It is true that high 
angle fire has much the same effect from whatever 
direction it comes, because the last part of its trajectory 
is so nearly perpendicular. It is also true that no well 
constructed trench can be completely enfiladed. Still, fire 
from the flank remains a very serious addition 
to the difliculties of any defensive line no matter how care- 
fully it has been traced. Finally, and much more im- 
portant, the guns supporting the men in the salient and 
situated behind a cover say M-N, were under cover so long 
as the attack came only from in front (i). But when the 
attack comes from the side (2) as well their positions are 
uncovered and they can no longer be used ; they must be 
withdrawn or "lost. Observation from the air, the 
