Battle of the Boar's Head

Battle of the Boar's Head
Part of The Western Front, in the First World War
Richebourg-l'Avoué area, 1914–1916
Date 30 June 1916 Location Artois, France 50°34′19″N 2°44′41″E / 50.57194°N 2.74472°E / 50.57194; 2.74472 Result See Aftermath section
Belligerents
British Empire	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Douglas Haig	Erich von Falkenhayn
Strength
2 battalions
Casualties and losses
850–1,366
Richbourg (Boar's Head) class=notpageimage| Richebourg-l'Avoué, commune in the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France

The Battle of the Boar's Head was an attack on 30 June 1916 at Richebourg-l'Avoué in France, during the First World War. Troops of the 39th Division, XI Corps in the First Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), advanced to capture the Boar's Head, a salient held by the German 6th Army. Two battalions of the 116th Brigade, with one battalion forming carrying parties, attacked the German front position before dawn on 30 June. The British took and held the German front line trench and the second trench for several hours, before retiring to their lines having lost 850–1,366 casualties.

The operation was conducted when the British Armies on the Western Front north of the Somme, supported the Fourth Army during the Battle of the Somme (1 July to 18 November). The British Third, First and Second armies conducted 310 raids against the Germans up to November 1916, harassing the Germans opposite to give novice divisions experience of fighting on the Western Front, to inflict casualties and to prevent German troops from being transferred to the Somme. From 19 to 20 July, XI Corps conducted the much bigger Battle of Fromelles, where British and Australian troops suffered an even greater number of casualties.