Battle of Mametz Wood 1916: 38th (Welsh) Division, Map, Timeline & Complete Field Guide

Mametz Wood was not one clean assault and it was not one simple story.

For the 38th (Welsh) Division the fighting south of the wood on 7 July 1916, the main attack on 10 July and the confused struggle that followed became one of the most important episodes in Welsh military memory. The shorthand version says that the division was ordered to take the wood, suffered heavily and eventually succeeded. The records show something harder: exposed approaches, machine-gun fire, units losing direction, artillery and infantry struggling to remain connected, German positions changing hands inside dense woodland and later arguments over command and performance.

This Field Guide follows the battle by ground and time. It also separates what the sources establish securely from points that remain disputed.

At a glance

• Battle: Mametz Wood, Battle of the Somme.
• Key dates: 7–12 July 1916.
• Main British formation: 38th (Welsh) Division.
• Key assault date: 10 July 1916.
• Location: Somme, France, north of Mametz and west of Bazentin.
• Terrain: rising open ground leading into a large, dense wood cut by tracks, shell holes and defensive positions.
• Result: British occupation of the wood after several days of costly fighting.

Where is Mametz Wood?

Mametz Wood lies north of Mametz village on the Somme battlefield, with Contalmaison to the north-west and Bazentin to the north-east. The physical relationship matters. An attacker moving toward the wood had to cross open or only partially covered ground before reaching a dense tree line that concealed German positions and broke up formations once the infantry entered.

On a modern visit the wood can appear calm and compact. In July 1916 it was a battlefield feature several battalions wide, scarred by artillery and threaded by positions that were difficult to identify from outside. Once men entered, visibility and control deteriorated quickly.

Why the Welsh Division was attacking it

The opening attack of the Somme on 1 July had not produced the general breakthrough the British command hoped for, but the battle continued. Mametz village fell and the front moved towards the next belt of German positions. Mametz Wood dominated part of that route.

The 38th (Welsh) Division had been built largely from wartime-raised Welsh units. By July it was being committed to a major offensive battle against prepared German defences. Capturing the wood would help open the ground towards Bazentin and the next stage of the Somme attack.

The failed attack of 7 July

The division's first major attempt against the wood on 7 July exposed the central problem immediately: the approach.

Units including the 16th Welsh and battalions of 115th Brigade had to advance over ground observed and swept by German fire. War diaries record reforming, renewed attempts and machine-gun opposition. The attack failed to secure the wood.

It is tempting to reduce that failure to courage or leadership. The surviving records do not support such a simple explanation. The attackers faced exposed slopes, uncertain observation, imperfect artillery effects and strong German fire. The battle also revealed how difficult it was for higher command to understand exactly what was happening at the front.

Command controversy

The failure produced criticism from senior command. Major-General Ivor Philipps, commanding the 38th (Welsh) Division, was removed during the Mametz fighting and command arrangements changed before the decisive assault.

Later retellings have often turned this episode into a morality play: either an unfairly maligned Welsh division or a formation that had failed and needed firmer direction. The evidence is more complicated. Senior commanders were dissatisfied; the division had not achieved its objective; the ground and German defence were formidable; and the subsequent attack required substantial preparation and reorganisation.

Those facts can coexist.

Preparing the 10 July attack

The order for the main assault was direct: the whole wood was to be captured.

British planning had to solve several linked problems. Artillery needed to suppress positions on and inside the wood. Infantry had to cross the approach without losing cohesion. Units then had to fight through dense terrain where conventional straight-line advances quickly became unrealistic.

The 14th Welsh, 13th Welsh, 15th Welsh and other battalions of the division were committed within a wider brigade plan. The detailed battalion diaries show different experiences even within the same attack: changes of direction, heavy fire, local success, disorganisation and repeated efforts to restore a line.

10 July: reaching the wood

The assault began after artillery preparation on the morning of 10 July.

The infantry moved across ground that had already proved lethal. German machine guns remained one of the main threats. Some British units reached the edge of the wood and pushed in; others were checked, diverted or mixed with neighbouring battalions.

The edge of a wood is not a finish line. It is a tactical transition. Outside, a commander can still attempt to maintain intervals and direction. Inside, trees, smoke, shell holes, fallen timber and enemy pockets make the same control much harder.

Inside Mametz Wood

Once the Welsh troops entered, the battle fragmented.

Small groups fought around tracks, clearings and broken timber. German defenders could use local cover and machine-gun positions to delay an advance without holding one continuous trench. British units became intermingled. Officers and NCOs had to make local decisions with limited knowledge of what was happening on either flank.

This is one reason exact battalion boundaries inside the wood are difficult to reconstruct. War diaries, later accounts and German regimental histories do not always describe the same ground in the same way. A responsible reconstruction uses areas and sequences rather than pretending every company can be plotted to a single modern coordinate.

The German defence

The German side was not static. Units were reinforced, shifted and in some cases thrown into local counter-action as the British penetrated the wood.

Research for this guide has compared British records with German regimental histories including those of Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 122, Infanterie-Regiment 184 and the Lehr infantry formations involved in the fighting. These sources help explain why British accounts sometimes describe resistance appearing in places that do not fit a simple fixed trench map.

German records also underline that the defence had its own command and communications problems. The wood was being fought over from both directions, not attacked by one coherent body against another equally coherent body.

The Hammerhead and the northern fight

As the attack developed, the northern and north-eastern parts of the wood became especially important. Later accounts often refer to the Hammerhead area when describing the hardest fighting and German reinforcement.

The British advance did not simply sweep from south to north. Positions were cleared, bypassed, re-entered and contested. By evening the problem was as much about establishing a defensible line and identifying what remained ahead as it was about continuing movement.

11–12 July: when was Mametz Wood actually taken?

This apparently simple question depends on what 'taken' means.

A formation can reach the far edge of a wood while enemy groups remain inside. Patrols can report ground clear and later encounter opposition. Exposed forward positions can be abandoned without meaning that the entire defensive system has recovered.

British and German sources therefore do not produce one perfect clock time for 'the capture of Mametz Wood'. The best description is that the decisive penetration occurred on 10 July, fighting and clearance continued afterwards, and by 12 July the British held the wood sufficiently for the operation to move into consolidation and the next phase.

Casualties

Mametz was costly, but casualty figures need discipline.

Different sources count different date ranges and categories. Some give divisional totals for the wider operation; others give battalion returns for particular days; contemporary lists can include men initially missing who were later reclassified. Quoting one number without defining it creates false precision.

The important point is secure: several battalions lost a very large proportion of the officers and men who entered the attack. The 14th Welsh, for example, suffered extremely heavily on 10 July. Across the division the battle left thousands killed, wounded or missing over the period.

Our longer Mametz research keeps unit totals tied to their source and reporting date rather than forcing incompatible returns into one headline figure.

Was the 38th (Welsh) Division unfairly criticised?

The division's reputation after Mametz became inseparable from the criticism surrounding the failed attacks and command changes.

There are two traps here. One is to repeat contemporary criticism as if it settles the question. The other is to reverse it completely and turn every failure into evidence of prejudice.

The battle record shows a formation that suffered serious command and control problems, failed in its first attempts, adapted, and then carried out a difficult assault against determined resistance. That is neither a story of effortless heroism nor one of cowardice.

The later performance of Welsh Division units elsewhere on the Western Front also matters when assessing broad claims about their quality.

Mametz Wood and Welsh memory

Mametz acquired a cultural life beyond the operation itself.

Robert Graves wrote of the shattered wood after the battle. Llewelyn Wyn Griffith's manuscript and diary material provide a Welsh officer's perspective. David Jones transformed his own wartime experience into In Parenthesis. Christopher Williams's painting fixed another visual memory of the attack. Much later, Owen Sheers used the physical recovery of human remains from the landscape as the starting point for his poem Mametz Wood.

Those works should not replace the operational record, but they explain why Mametz occupies a place in Welsh memory disproportionate to the geographical size of the battlefield.

The Welsh Dragon Memorial

The red dragon memorial facing Mametz Wood has become the most recognisable modern marker of the battle.

It is a place of remembrance rather than a tactical observation post. From the surrounding public ground, however, the visitor can begin to understand the exposed approach and the scale of the wood. The correct way to read the battlefield is to connect the memorial to the wider ground rather than treat it as the whole site.

Walking the battlefield

The Gallus research project uses a seven-stop orientation framework: Mametz village and church area; Dantzig Alley; the Welsh Dragon Memorial; Flatiron Copse Cemetery; Contalmaison and the château-cemetery area; Bazentin; and Caterpillar Valley Cemetery.

Not every historic position can be assigned a precise GPS point, and the wood itself includes private land. Our battlefield approach therefore distinguishes public orientation points from reconstructed historic areas. Where a feature has disappeared, it is better to give a bearing or bounded area than invent a pin.

What the battle tells us

Mametz is useful because it strips away the idea that battlefield success is simply a question of bravery.

The men had to move through artillery effects, machine-gun fire, uncertain information and terrain that destroyed formation control. Commanders had to make decisions from reports that were already out of date. German defenders faced the same problems from the opposite direction as units were pushed back, reinforced and reorganised inside the wood.

The battle was won by accumulating local gains until the defence could no longer hold the feature. That is less tidy than the legend, but it is closer to how infantry battles actually work.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Mametz Wood?

It is on the Somme battlefield in northern France, north of Mametz village and south of the Bazentin area.

When was the Battle of Mametz Wood?

The key fighting involving the 38th (Welsh) Division ran from 7 to 12 July 1916. The principal assault began on 10 July.

Who attacked Mametz Wood?

The 38th (Welsh) Division conducted the main British attacks covered here, with several Welsh and Royal Welch Fusiliers battalions committed across the operation.

How many casualties were there?

There is no single figure that should be quoted without defining the date range and category. Divisional and battalion sources use different reporting windows. The losses were nevertheless severe and ran into the thousands across the operation.

Was Mametz Wood captured on 10 July?

The decisive penetration occurred on 10 July, but fighting, clearance and consolidation continued. Treating one clock time as the complete capture oversimplifies the evidence.

Related Field Notes

• Mametz Wood research hub
• First World War Field Notes hub
• Battle of the Somme 1916 — Complete Field Guide
• Lochnagar Crater 1 July 1916

Explore the wider period

Gallus World War 1 collection →

Sources & further research

• The National Archives, WO 95 series: 38th (Welsh) Division, 113th, 114th and 115th Infantry Brigades and relevant battalion war diaries.
• J. E. Munby, A History of the 38th (Welsh) Division.
• Albert Colin Hughes, The Capture of Mametz Wood, MPhil thesis, 1975.
• Chris Williams, study of the 38th (Welsh) Division at Mametz Wood and the question of divisional reputation.
• National Library of Wales, Llewelyn Wyn Griffith manuscripts and surviving war diary material.
• People's Collection Wales, Mametz Wood photographs, letters and individual records.
• Ernst Mügge, history of Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 122.
• Ernst Neumann, Vierzig Monate Westfront, Infanterie-Regiment 184.
• Mülmann & Mohs, history of Lehr-Infanterie-Regiment and its formations.