British artillery had good observation over the German defences at Guillemont but the German infantry dispersed into shell-holes, which nullified the effect of much of the artillery fire. British infantry reached the village several times and were then trapped by fire, from shell-hole positions on both flanks and from ahead. Wilfred Miles, the official historian, wrote that the attacks on 23 and 30 July failed because an attack from west and south-west, with no French supporting attack at Maurepas Ravine to the south, could not succeed. Philpott called hand grenades the main weapon and the side which won the bombing fight usually prevailed, which at Guillemont in August was the German, the British being "finished off with grenades and cold steel".