The Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November 1916), was fought by the British Fifth Army, against the German 1st Army. The Reserve Army had been renamed the Fifth Army on 30 October. The battle was the last of the big British attacks of the Battle of the Somme. After the Battle of Flers–Courcelette the Anglo-French armies tried to press their advantage with smaller attacks in quick succession, rather than pausing to regroup and give the Germans time to recover. Subsequent writers gave discrete dates for the Anglo-French battles but there were considerable overlaps and continuities of operations until the weather and supply difficulties in mid-November ended the battle until the new-year.

The 31st Division was an infantry division of the British Army. It was raised in the Great War by volunteers from Kitchener's Army and formed in April 1915 as part of the K4 Army Group and taken over by the War Office on 10 August 1915. Comprising mainly infantry battalions from Yorkshire and Lancashire, the division was sent to Egypt in December 1915 before moving to France in March 1916 and spent the remainder of the First World War in action on the Western Front. The 31st Division was the quintessential New Army division, being made up entirely of Pals battalions.