This long line of poplar trees leads to the high ground behind Thiepval, the culmination of the Pozieres Ridge before the land falls away sharply to the Ancre valley. There were two ferociously defended German redoubts here, just beyond the point where the trees end, Feste Staufen to the left, and Feste Zollern to the right - respectively Stuff and Goat to the British. Zollern fell to our people, the Dorsets and the Manchesters, on the 26th September 1916, concurrent with the fall of the neighbouring fortress of Mouquet Farm. The attack on Stuff was chaotic and disorganised, but parties of the West Yorks and the Green Howards gained a foothold on the 27th. However, the Germans were to counterattack repeatedly and in force, and the fighting continued 'at close quarters' - a euphemism that surely conceals horrors incomprehensible to our sensibilities - until the rest of the position finally succumbed to the 10th Cheshires on 13th October.