YESTERDAY saw the centenary of the Battle of Loos.

Historian Greg Schofield got in touch with Looking Back to remind us of this important date.

The First World War battle on September 28 1915 saw the British trying to seize back the coalfields from the Germans on the French/Belgian border near the city of Lille.

The offensive was part of a wider plan which began on September 25 following a four day artillery bombardment in which 250,000 shells were fired, and was called off in failure on September 28.

The British enjoyed massive numerical supremacy against their German opposition at Loos, in places of seven to 1.

Once the preliminary artillery bombardment had concluded, Haig's battle plans called for the release of 5,100 cylinders of chlorine gas from the British front line.

In places the wind blew the gas back into the British trenches, resulting in 2,632 British gas casualties, although only seven actually died.

The southern section of Haig's attack made significant progress on the first day of the battle, capturing Loos and moving onwards towards Lens.

However, supply problems, and a need for reserves who had been kept too far back, brought the advance to a halt at the end of the first day.

When the bulk of the reserves in the shape of 21st and 24th Divisions arrived on the battlefield, they were tired, bewildered and very ignorant of the situation.

Once the battle was resumed on the second day, poor communication and little artillery support resulted in 21st and 24th Divisions' attack on the German second line being cut to pieces in no man's land and retiring in the face of the German attacks.

Lt. John Edward Bull aged 21, of the 3rd Battalion the Dorsetshire Regiment died in the attack. He lived in ‘The Shanty’, Old Castle Road. His brother was a Captain in the Dorsets and was at home recovering from wounds, and his Brother-in-Law was Councillor W.G. Paul.

Meanwhile, north of the Hulloch-Vermelles road, the7th and 9th Divisions managed to establish a foothold on the Hohenzollern Redoubt.

The Germans, whose lines of defences at Hulloch and Hill 70 were in any case formidable, poured in reserves to counter-attack the following day.

Indeed, the German defences on the second day were stronger than those available at the start of the battle.

The British advanced towards the Germans that afternoon without covering fire, they were decimated by repeated machine gun fire, the Germans astonished that the attack had been launched without adequate cover.

In that attack died two Weymouth men:-

Arthur George Clark, a Serjeant in the 8th Queen’s Own (Royal West Kents). He had lived with his parents at 124, Abbotsbury Road, Weymouth

Cecil Walter Burt, aged 28, a Corporal in the 73rd Field Company Royal Engineers, He lived at ‘Lydwell’, in Weymouth.

The Loos attack was renewed by the British on 13 October, when further heavy losses combined with poor weather caused the offensive to be called off. It was during this battle Rudyard Kipling's son, John, was killed.

During the battle the British suffered 50,000 casualties. German casualties were estimated much lower, at approximately half the British total. And the Loos coalfields remained in German hands until 1917.