as a staff officer, recalled finding a completely disorganised unit, with no central co-ordination, no effective provision of laundry or comforts for front-line units, and described the divisional staff as simply "of no value". The 17th was deployed for the Battle of the Somme in July. It was engaged on the first day of the Somme, 1 July, where it supported the capture of Fricourt and lost 1,155 men killed or wounded. Following this, it was involved in the capture of Contalmaison and the capture of Mametz, and had taken a total of 4,771 casualties by the time it was relieved on 11 July. Many of these casualties stemmed from an unsuccessful attack on the "Quadrangle Trench Support" on 7 July; the division had captured the main trench system on 5 July and Pilcher ordered it to pause and prepare for a subsequent assault. However, he was over-ruled by higher command, who forced an attack the next night – which failed – followed by a daylight attack on 7 July, which Pilcher strongly protested but eventually acquiesced in. He ordered an attack with the minimal number of men necessary, assuming it would inevitably be doomed to failure and high casualties, which outraged his superiors. Pilcher later wrote that "It is very easy to sit a few miles in the rear and get credit for allowing men to be killed in an undertaking foredoomed to failure, but the part did not appeal to me and my protests against these useless attacks were not well received." Following the division's withdrawal, Pilcher was promptly sacked by his corps commander, Henry Horne, along with the commander of the neighbouring 38th (Welsh) Division; Horne considered him lacking in "initiative, drive, and readiness", while Haig simply dismissed him as "unequal to the task" of divisional command. Pilcher was succeeded by Philip Robertson on 13 July 1916. He was later appointed to command the Eastern Reserve Centre at St. Albans, and retired from the Army in 1919. Later life Following the end of the war, Pilcher contested the seat of Thornbury in the 1918 general election. He opposed the sitting Liberal member Athelstan Rendall, a Coalition Coupon candidate, representing the splinter right-wing National Party of Conservatives opposed to the Coalition. He was heavily defeated, taking only 38% of the vote in what had previously been a relatively close seat. He continued a loose association with right-wing politics,