On the 25th September 1915, the Battle of Loos began in Artois, in what was the largest British offensive of the war to date. While the majority of the fighting took place around the mine workings and slag heaps around Loos and Hulluch, some fourteen miles to the north, a diversionary attack took place at Mauquissart in an attempt to try and prevent German reserves being sent south to reinforce the German lines.
Their objective was to capture German lines between Pietre and Mauquissart, an area of battlefield dominated by a landmark windmill, the Moulin de Pietre - the Pauper's Mill. The fighting for the mill and the German lines around it was a massacre, with poor communications and heavy German resistance taking a sickening toll on the attacking infantry.
In only 36 hours, the attacks in this area cost the Allies over 3000 men killed, wounded, or missing and had little to no impact on the movement of troops. What happened that day and why did it go so wrong for the Allies? Find out more as we journey across one of the forgotten battlefields of the Great War.
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