forward. Some German infantry stood on trench parapets to aim better and red rockets were fired to call for artillery barrages on no man's land, which shattered the British infantry formations. The survivors kept going and began a bombing fight close to the German line which, was defeated except at the Redoubt, which was quickly sealed off by German flanking parties and between Thiepval and the Ancre, where the Iriish advanced towards Grandcourt away. Several counter-attacks were mounted, which forced the British back to the German front trench after dark. Aftermath Analysis Prior and Wilson wrote that the conventional account of the day has soldiers burdened by of equipment, obeying "doltish" orders to walk shoulder-to-shoulder towards the German lines and being mown down by German machine-gunners, who had time to climb out of shelters and man the parapet. Prior and Wilson ascribed the origin of this narrative to John Buchan in The Battle of the Somme (1917) in which the bravery of soldiers is extolled, rather than faulty infantry tactics being criticised. Prior and Wilson traced the narrative through the writing of B. H. Liddell Hart, J. E. Edmonds the official historian, C. R. M. F. Cruttwell, Martin Middlebrook, Correlli Barnett and Paul Kennedy. In 1970, Anthony Farrar-Hockley questioned the narrative but reverted to the orthodox view soon after. Prior and Wilson did not dispute the facts of and but wrote that the Tactical Notes issued by Rawlinson did not dictate the way that advances were to be made but were "ambiguous", referring to "celerity of movement", "a steady pace" and "a rapid advance of some lightly-equipped men" and did not prescribe a formation to be adopted for the advance. At the northern end of the British front, the leading brigade of the 31st Division advanced into no man's land before zero hour, ready to rush the German front trench when the barrage lifted. Some units of the 4th Division advanced from the British front line in formations led by snipers and skirmishers; in the 29th Division some battalions "marched" to the German wire and others rushed forward from assembly-trenches dug in no man's land. In the 36th (Ulster), 32nd and 8th division areas, some battalions assembled in front of the German wire, ready to rush forward at zero hour and many of the battalions of XV Corps and XIII Corps walked slowly forward in lines behind a creeping barrage.