[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE UNDERGROUND DEFENCES.]
The Warlencourt Ridge proper consists of two superimposed eminences: a bare plateau about two-thirds of a mile in width--now covered with graves--and a chalky shell-torn hillock, which was the centre of the German position.
[Illustration: WARLENCOURT RIDGE, SOUTH SIDE.]
Pierced with subterranean galleries, furrowed with several successive lines of trenches, surrounded by a triple belt of entrenchments bristling with barbed wire entanglements and flanked at every angle by redoubts with innumerable mortars and machine-guns, such was the ridge which, like an impregnable fortress, faced the British trenches throughout the winter of 1916-17.
Several times in October and November, 1916, the British endeavoured to carry the position, but each time their attacks failed against the formidable defences. Only on February 25, 1917, did they succeed in taking it, after a feint attack on the rear-guards, which were protecting the withdrawal of the German main forces.
In 1917, the British erected five large crosses on the top of the ridge in memory of the units which took part in the assaults of 1916.
_After visiting Warlencourt Ridge, return to N. 29, along which continue to =Bapaume= (5 km.)._
[Illustration: BAPAUME. BRITISH TANKS IN THE SUBURB OF ARRAS.]
Situated on the road of invasion, at the intersection of the highways leading to Amiens, Arras, Cambrai and Soissons, Bapaume, in the course of past centuries, was several times besieged, destroyed or plundered. The town dates from the early Middle-Ages, and owes its origin to a fortified Castle built at the exit of the immense Arrouaise Forest, which at that time extended from the Ancre to the Sambre, and was infested by robbers and cut-throats. Mention of this particularity is found in an eleventh century heroic poem "En Aroaise a mauvaise ripaille."
[Illustration: BAPAUME. THE RUE D'ARRAS, SEEN FROM THE PLACE FAIDHERBE.]
Under the protection of the Castle, the town grew rapidly, and soon became an important city, made wealthy by the trading between France and Flanders. Conquered by Louis XI., it afterwards fell into the hands of the Spaniards, and was transformed into a fortified town by Charles Quint. Recaptured by Francis I., it was lost again, and retaken only in 1641. Several years later, the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) ceded it definitely to France.