Grandcourt Line, was the identity of the troops visible in the area discovered. As soon as the British bombardment lifted, the only reserves nearby, the recruit battalion of IR 180 and a machine-gun company, occupied the Grandcourt Line around Thiepval. The 107th Brigade advanced to the A Line but the 10th Royal Irish Rifles on the right, had to pass through machine-gun fire from front, right flank and right rear, which caused many casualties. By runners had reported the fall of the C Line, eight minutes before the advance to the D Line was due to begin. Because of the defeats of the 32nd Division on the right flank at Thiepval and the VIII Corps divisions on the north bank of the Ancre, Nugent tried to get permission from X Corps headquarters to cancel the 107th Brigade attack on the D Line. Nugent was over-ruled, as new attacks were being arranged on the flanks; about later X Corps HQ ordered the advance to stop until the situation on the flanks was clearer. The stop order failed to reach the 107th Brigade, because telephone lines had been cut and runners were shot down crossing no man's land. The brigade advanced for about in a "wild and desperate venture", before the survivors were repulsed from the objective by German troops in the D Line (Grandcourt Trench). German attacks on the left flank from St Pierre Divion, were forced back several times, by the remaining men of the three battalions on the left flank; on the right flank, the Mouquet Switch trench was reconnoitred and found empty. An attack from the east face of Redoubt was met by machine-gun fire but a party of about fifty men reached an artillery position in a fold known as (Boom Ravine), in front of the Grandcourt Line. Other groups got into the line further south, where it was unoccupied. By the breakthrough on the 26th Reserve Division front had made Thiepval vulnerable to an attack from the redoubt, which would make the village untenable. Soden ordered General Auwäter, commander of Reserve Infantry Brigade 52, to recapture the redoubt and sent a battalion of Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 8 (BRIR 8) as reinforcements. Auwäter ordered the counter-attack to begin immediately by three groups, from the north-east, east and south-east, to forestall a wheeling movement against Thiepval and Ovillers. Delays caused to message runners by the British bombardment,