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Born-Stoke Newington

The Battle of Loos

The Battle of Loos, fought by the British Army from 25th September, 1915 through to 13th October, was conducted along a six-and-a-half-mile front running north from the mining village of Loos on the outskirts of Lens in Northern France and was the largest offensive carried out by the British so far in the war. The opening day involved an attack by six divisions, with others entering the battle as it progressed, and it was part of a much wider offensive with the French launching their own attacks in Champagne and at Vimy. It was the first time that the British used gas during the war, despite their condemnation of the Germans for doing the same in April 1915. There were some encouraging results on the first day but no major breakthrough was achieved and in the successive days the offensive became mired in trench warfare. By mid-October the battle had petered out with the British having suffered over 60,000 casualties during its course.

Action of Pietre

With the aim of diverting German troops away from Loos when the British attack went in there on 25th September 1915, there was an attack by the Meerut Division of the India Corps along a 1500 yard front against the German salient west of the Moulin du Pietre with the possible objective of gaining a foothold on the Aubers ridge after which the Lahore Division would attack through the Bois du Biez.  As at Loos, gas and smoke were used but this handicapped the attackers more than the defenders, especially when German shells destroyed some of the cylinders.  Zero was at 6am and on the right the 2/3rd Gurkha Rifles and 2nd Leicestershire battalions of Garhwal Brigade stormed forward. However, very little artillery ammunition had been made available for the diversionary attacks and here the German wire was still largely intact.  This resulted in severe losses for these two battalions who got no further than the dykes in front of the German line. 

There was more success on the left where the Bareilly Brigade captured the enemy front line and pushed on to the support line but when the German counter attack came all units were eventually forced to withdraw back to their original line. 2nd Leicestershire sustained over 400 casualties during this failed operation including Samuel Cox who was killed.