We know that the attacking troops would have had to attack with a weight of 60lbs on their backs, a gruelling task on its own, and a seemingly impossible task with enemy fire and a muddy shell cratered landscape. Despite all this there was one more difficulty evident presented with geographical evidence at Newfoundland Park, the land is undulating. This means that the soldiers would have had to carry these heavy packs down and then up slopes before reaching the enemy’s front line.
Prior to the battle Haig had ordered a massive artillery bombardment which lasted for five days, it was designed to both kill a lot of German soldiers and cut the Germans wire, both of which failed. At Newfoundland Park we have strong evidence of why this failed, the Germans were dug in a Y ravine, an extremely great natural position. We can see at the park that it would have been impossible for shells to penetrate here as they would have to have been capable of going backwards.
On their advance troops had to walk through gaps in their own wire to get out onto no mans land, this was very treacherous, as men walking through these gaps were easy targets for enemy machine gunners. Many troops were killed walking through these gaps because, as these were the only ways through all of the troops would be collating around these areas making themselves a very large target. Unfortunately at Newfoundland Park there is no evidence of this, all the barbed wire has since gone, all that remains are a few screw pickets.
At Newfoundland Park there is sound evidence of the length of no mans land, we can see exactly where the German and British front line trenches were and how far apart they were. This is strong evidence that tells us that, the men going across no mans land would not have got to the Germans trenches before machine gun posts were operating.
The Hawthorn mine was the biggest mine to be detonated that day; it was detonated ten minutes prior to the attack, rather than the arranged two. At the park we could see the outline of the crater; this is strong evidence that the Germans would’ve easily been able to hear an explosion of that magnitude up and down the line, and as it was ten minutes before it gave them plenty of time to prepare for the attack.
The British troops had to walk across no mans land in long horizontal lines when they attacked, making them very easy targets for German machine gunners. At Newfoundland Park we have good evidence of the view that the German machine gunners would have had. I could see that from their trench they would have had a high-quality and open view of the advancing troops.
In conclusion Newfoundland Park is an exceptionally good site for viewing the difficulties that the soldiers would have faced on the first day of the battle. It is a good site as it provides us we strong geographical evidence of what the battlefield looked like at the time of the battle. All that the site lacks is the barbed wire we can not really get a good understanding of just how thick and dense it was.