Infantry Brigade of Sherwood Foresters, under Brigadier-General J. Harington, D.S.O., were also moved up into their positions during the night. They were thus disposed so that immediately the situation had cleared sufficiently, they could move forward to the forming-up position at which they were to take over from the 137th Infantry Brigade and continue to press the attack until the final objectives of the Division were reached and consolidated.
Similar positions for Brigade Headquarters had been selected, and the troops of both Brigades were concentrated where as much shelter as possible from the enemy's retaliatory fire was available, in order to avoid unnecessary casualties. Casualties in all three Brigades were caused during the night by enemy gas and high explosive shells, and work was much interfered with by this shelling, which, however, died away towards morning, giving satisfactory proof that the enemy did not anticipate any immediate attack on a large scale.
The general dispositions of the Division for the attack were as follows:—
The area to be occupied had been divided into two main objectives, each limited by a line running almost due north and south. These were marked respectively on the map issued by the General Staff before the action by a red and a green line, and for convenience of reference may be referred to as the Red and the Green objectives.
These main objectives were again subdivided, the first into two portions by a blue line, and the second into three approximately equal portions by a green and a dotted blue line. These subdivisions were made to enable the assaulting troops to rest and reorganize under a protective barrage of a few minutes' duration, and each line was chosen as being either a definite element of the
