Delville Wood, Battle of, was fought in France by British and South African troops against German soldiers during World War I (1914-1918). The attack on Delville Wood was part of the Allied Somme Offensive on the Western Front in 1916. At dawn on July 15, the South African Brigade—the Springboks—of the 9th Scottish Division stormed the wood. At the time, Delville Wood was 156 acres (63 hectares) of heavily defended forest and dense undergrowth near the village of Longueval. The South Africans pressed their attack and resisted German counterattacks in hand-to-hand combat for six days. British troops relieved the exhausted Springboks on the evening of July 20. Of the 3,153 South Africans who went into action, more than 2,300 were killed, wounded, or went missing. It was the Springboks’ bloodiest action on the Western Front. The Germans and British suffered heavy casualties as well.
Fighting at Delville Wood dragged on until the end of August, when British troops finally secured the area. The Germans retook the wood in March 1918, but Allied troops drove them out again in August.
Delville Wood Cemetery contains 5,523 burials and commemorations. Of these, 3,593 are the graves of unknown soldiers. In 1926, the South African National Memorial was unveiled in the center of the wood to honor the roughly 10,000 South Africans killed in World War I.
See also Somme, Battle of the; World War I.
