Detail from the Memorial to the French Moroccan Division at Vimy Ridge. The theaters and battles in which the division played a role are recorded on the sides of the monument. © 2013, John M. Shea
1918La LorraineJanuary 8 - Flireythe SommeApril 26 - Villers-Bretonneux, Bois de Hangardthe AisneMay 30 - Vauxbuin, ChazelleJune 12 - AmblenyJuly 18 to 20 - Dommiers ChaudumSeptember 2 to 8 - Terny-Sorny, Moulin de Laffaux, AllemantNovember 11 - VictoryNovember 17 - Entree a Chateau-Salins
"Over the night of 3–4 July the defenders worked frantically on their third position, linking it through Barleux and Belloy-en-Santerre to the second position at Estrées. The French seized these last two villages on the afternoon of 4 July. Foreign legionnaires from the Moroccan Division assaulted Belloy after a three-hour bombardment. Their morale was excellent. Despite coming under withering close-range machine-gun fire from emplacements hidden until the moment of assault, the legionnaires pressed on into the village. As the bugler sounded the charge, the wounded men in no-man's land raised themselves up and cries of 'Vive la Légion! Vive la France!' could be heard above the gunfire. In the afternoon the legionnaires fought off the first of a series of counter-attacks from the woods to the north-east which 21 RIC had failed to take: the enemy could be seen dismounting from their lorries on the road a few hundred metres behind and immediately joining the attack. The fight went on throughout the night, often hand-to-hand; but the legionnaires kept the village."
In the first days of the Battle of the Somme, begun July 1, 1916, the French had breached the German first defensive line and at some points the second. The Moroccan Division that was so successful at Belloy-en-Santerre had been the first unit to break the German line in the war, having done so in the May, 1915 Second Battle of Artois. '21 RIC' was the 21st Régiment d'infanterie colonial.
Three Armies on the Somme by William Philpott, pp. 216, 217, copyright © 2009 by William Philpott, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, publication date: 2009
1916-07-04, 1916, July, Battle of the Somme, Somme, Moroccan Division, Assevillers, Belloy- en-Santerre, Barleux
