<– Part 121 – November 12, 1916  | Part 122 – November 19, 1916 |  Part 123 – November 26, 1916 –>

Ancre sector 1 July 1916, showing the Hawthorne redoubt (and mine crater) near the top left.

A mine was detonated under the Hawthorne Redoubt November 13 near Ancre, starting the final Allied offensive of the Somme. Using a series of small, focused attacks designed to keep the Germans off-balance, the Allies pushed their advance through yesterday, losing 22,000 men to the German’s 38,000 (plus 7,000 prisoners). With that, both sides are hunkering down and preparing for winter, while the Germans seem to be preparing a fortified, defensive line some dozens of kilometers behind the front lines. And so the Somme campaign has finished, somewhat inconclusively, with 420,000 British, 200,000 French, and 450-500,000 German casualties – over one million men cut down.

The fighting at Crna Bend, part of the Monastir campaign in Macedonia, ended earlier today. The Central Powers withdrew from Monastir yesterday, and the French and Russian forces occupied it today. Tens of thousands of casualties, predominately Bulgarian, German, and Austro-Hungarian, litter the field, where the Central Powers have retreated to defensive positions, and the Allies are too exhausted to continue pressing their advantage.