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The Historical Context
1914
On 28 June 1914 the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand
of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary.
Declarations of war followed, in an inexorable sequence :
Germany, Russia, France, Great Britain, Belgium, Austria-Hungary,
Serbia, etc. Almost all the pieces were in place for the sinister
game : confidently expected to end by Christmas, it was to
last for more than four years, for the "Belle Epoque"
was over and Europe was plunging into its bloodiest civil
war. German forces occupied Liège and Charleroi and
reached Picardy. On 31 August 1914 they entered Amiens, which
was abandoned a week later when Von Kluck gave the order
to retreat after the Battle of the Marne : the Schlieffen
Plan failed and the pincers did not close around Paris. The
first Battle of the Somme, from September 20 to 30, was
part of "the race to the sea", and memorials
at Ovillers, Guillemont and Flers recall the battles of those
early months. From October the front line became stabilised,
stretching 750 kilometres from the Yser to the Swiss border.
Strategic aims turned from containment to breakthrough, a
policy which was to last for three and a half years. The Somme
front, held at this stage by the French army, lay along a
north-south line passing close to the villages of Beaumont-Hamel,
Thiepval, La Boisselle, Fricourt, Maricourt (with a double
right angle), Curlu (following a loop of the River Somme),
Dompierre, Fay, Chaulnes, and Maucourt, while the Germans
occupied the ridges above the valleys of the Ancre and
the Somme. Each army dug its trenches and communication lines,
constructed underground shelters and surface defences. Each
set up its networks of barbed wire, often 40 metres thick,
along the edges of no man's land, which varied between 50
metres and 300 metres in width.
1915
1915 proved to be the most murderous year of the whole war.
It was the year of the great offensives, all designed to achieve
a 'breakthrough' - but all failed : Champagne, Artois, Argonne,
the Vosges. In Turkey, the Dardanelles operations was a failure,
and there was failure too at Ypres. There was no major offensive
in the Somme sector, only hit-and-run attacks, raids and mine
warfare (Fricourt, Fay).
1916
The Battle of the Somme in 1916 affected a very large
part of the department, from Beaumont-Hamel and Bapaume in
the north down to Chilly, south of Chaulnes. The British
held the battle front line from its northern end as
far as Maricourt while the French held the south,
across the valley of the River Somme.
The general strategy for 1916 on the French, Russian and Italian
fronts was proposed at the inter-allied conference in December
1915, at the Chantilly headquarters. Joffre defined the Battle
of the Somme very clearly : "The strategic aim
I intended to carry out was to direct a mobile mass at the
enemy's network of lines of communication, through
Cambrai, Le Cateau and Maubeuge. The road from Bapaume
to Cambrai thus defined the initial line of attack. The
objective was marked out by Miraumont, Le Sars, Ginchy, Maurepas,
Hem and the Flaucourt plateau" (Joffre's memoirs). But
"the Verdun inferno" forced the allied command to
reduce the length of the front and to reverse roles on the
Somme : the British army was now of prime importance.
The German command, anticipating a large-scale attack
in the north of the Somme, had had time to consolidate its
positions substantially. This immediately made up for its
numerical disadvantage, as they took skilful advantage
of the local topography, constructing concrete fortifications,
reinforcing trenches which in every case overlooked
the French and British lines, digging innumerable underground
communications networks (sometimes as much as 12 metres deep),
shelters and barracks (the Schwaben Redoubt at Thiepval).
Both armies prepared for the attack, creating a kind of bustling
temporary city. New roads appeared, others were consolidated,
and bridges, stations and railway lines were constructed to
bring up supplies of food, fodder munitions and equipment.
New trenches were dug, jumping-off lines and access lines.
First-aid posts and hospitals, battery positions, airfields,
assembly areas, observation posts - all needed planning and
construction.
British, German and French troops finally formed a concentrated
mass of approximately one million men and 200 000 horses
living in a constant flow of relief and reinforcements amidst
the crash of explosives. The battle began on 24 June with
an allied artillery barrage that continued without interruption
by day or night, designed to demolish the networks of barbed
wire barring the way and to flatten the German positions.
But bad weather and inaccurate predictions of the effects
of the bombardment meant that the surface fortifications were
not completely destroyed and the underground networks survived
undamaged…
1 July 1916
On 1 July 1916, at precisely 7.30 am, a few moments
after the simultaneous explosion of several huge mines
("Hawthorn" in Beaumont-Hamel, "Lochnagar"
at La Boisselle, "The Tambour" at Fricourt, etc.),
and moving close behind the moving barrage of the Allied artillery,
the British and French infantry advanced from their trenches.
The French units south of the river attacked two hours later,
as a diversionary tactic. By that evening the French
6th Army under General Fayolle had reached its primary
objectives :
- south of the Somme the German front line between Fay and
Dompierre was captured by the 1st Colonial Corps ;
- north of the river, Curlu and Hardecourt were gained but
with greater difficulty.
In the British sector, however, the situation was
disastrous. General Allenby's 3rd Army and General Rawlinson's
4th Army, consisting of new and inexperienced troops, were
shattered on the slopes of Thiepval (Ulster Tower, the Irish
Division memorial) and at Beaumont-Hamel (Newfoundland National
Memorial Park). South of La Boisselle and at Fricourt, the
German line was pierced only here and there.
Next day the number of casualties suffered on 1 July
proved to have been appalling : 58 000 men fell, including
20 000 killed. Thirty-two battalions had lost more than
500 men (out of an average strength of 800); the Newfoundlanders
lost 700 men in thirty minutes. Never before had Britain and
her Empire faced a conflict of such proportions, never before
had they suffered a military catastrophe on so great a scale.
The left wing of the British army lost so many men that Haig
briefly abandoned the attack to the west of the Pozières-Thiepval
ridge.
July ended with a slow general advance (Welsh Division memorial
at Mametz), its uneven progress revealing the varied results
of the two armies' encounters along the line. Successes at
Fricourt, Mametz, Longueval (South African memorial) and Pozières
(Australian memorials) were not matched elsewhere. The French
reached Biaches and La Maisonnette, but although they came
within two kilometres of Péronne, the impassable
barrier of the Somme prevented them from occupying the
town until the end of the offensive.
Costly and limited attacks were launched in August,
the combined French and British forces gaining control of
the 2nd German line : Pozières, Bazentin, Maurepas
(memorial to the 1st French infantry regiment, and a plaque
to the 9th Zouaves), Hem and Herbécourt. Meanwhile,
however, the natural strong-points of Thiepval and Beaumont-Hamel
remained impregnable.
The Germans swiftly created a third line of trenches ;
they were also forced to transfer some of their artillery
and aviation forces, and four infantry divisions, to the Austro-Hungarian
front, a move that defeated their plans for a counter-attack
on the Somme.
A fresh general offensive was launched in September,
particularly to the east of Pozières. The British launched
their first tank attack (tank memorial at Pozières),
took Flers (memorial to the 41st Division), Martinpuich and
Courcelette (Canadian memorial), and finally captured Thiepval.
They surrounded Combles, together with the French who occupied
Bouchavesnes (statue of Foch), Rancourt, Cléry-sur-Somme
and Deniécourt, Vermandovillers and, further to the
south, Chilly. But the German front remained unbroken.
The third German line, from Gueudecourt to the Somme, was
captured at the beginning of October, but the British
were halted at the Butte de Warlencourt (Western Front Association
memorial). The French were held at Sailly-Saillisel and in
the woods of St Pierre-Vast, where they suffered heavy losses
(Souvenir Français memorial chapel at Rancourt). Beaumont-Hamel
did not fall to the British until mid-November, four
and a half months after the first launch of the offensive.
Incessant torrential rain turned the ground into a
morass in which men, animals and weapons were trapped. The
battlefield became a "foul brown mush which swallows
everything" (Pierre Loti).
The waters overwhelmed the warfare, the armies took to their
winter quarters and reformed their units. The British advance,
after four and a half months of battle, was approximately
12 kilometres, and between 5 and 8 kilometres for the less
numerous French. Of approximately 3 million men in the line
during this period, some 1.2 million were killed, wounded
or missing in action, and the Allied objectives set out in
December 1915 remained out of reach. The only reason for the
Allied occupation of Péronne and Bapaume in March 1917
was the decision of the German High Command - determined
to remain in control of its terrain, as in 1914 - to order
a general withdrawal to the "Hindenburg Line"
(Arras-Soissons), a manoeuvre enabling the German army to
reduce the length of its lines by some 70 kilometres and 8
divisions. It was a remarkable strategic coup.
1917
The chief events on the Western Front
were :
- the tragic French offensive of the Chemin des Dames in April,
and its ensuing disturbances ;
- the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) which engaged
the British and Dominion forces from July to October ;
- the disastrous Italian retreat after Caporetto, in November
;
- the Battle of Cambrai, also in November, with 381 tanks
engaged in the first British mass tank attack.
1918
The German army was reinforced by
the arrival of divisions transferred from the east, after
their defeat of the Russian Army and Russia's withdrawal from
the war at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918).
This was the year of the final German offensive on 21 March,
the British retreat, and the appointment of Foch (Doullens
Town Hall), as the sole commander of the Allied forces.
The German breakthrough and advance towards Amiens was halted
by the Australian forces at Villers-Bretonneux (Australian
national memorial), and the intervention of American troops
(Cantigny memorial). The memorial to the 14,700 missing British
soldiers from 21 March-7 August 1918, in Pozières cemetery,
the memorials to the 31th French Army Corps at Moreuil, the
2nd Australian division at Péronne Mont-Saint-Quentin
and the Canadians at Le Quesnel, and the many British cemeteries
in the Santerre area, mark the Allied counter-offensive which
led up to the Armistice signed on 11 November at Compiègne
(Oise).
By the end of the war, the British presence was strongly marked
on the landscape of these murderous battles, studding the
landscape with cemeteries and memorials, while the French
encouraged families to take back the bodies of their soldiers.
Those that remained were collected together for burial in
vast cities of the dead.
Your visit will therefore enable you to explore the British
zone, with its manifold and sometimes spectacular reminders,
in the north, while in the south the more specialised visitors
can discover the French sector where the remains and memorials
are more modest though still highly evocative.
Jean-Pierre Thierry.
The Many Nations
at war
Several of the countries involved in this First World War
still had colonial empires. Now that these countries having
gained their independence, the list of modern nations who
took part in this conflict is impressive. The Battle of the
Somme alone shows a tally of at least thirty nations represented
among the Allied armies:
France and its former empire: Burkina-Faso, Ivory Coast,
Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Vietnam, Madagascar, Algeria,
Tunisia, Morocco ;
Great Britain and its former empire: South Africa, Australia,
Canada, Newfoundland (then independent), New Zealand, India,
Burma, Pakistan, Barbados, Rhodesia, the Republic of Ireland;
Russia, Belgium, Italy, United States, China, Egypt;
Individual volunteers also came to the Somme from other countries
to fight (from Spain and Catalonia, Romania, Switzerland,
Sweden, Montenegro, etc.)
Maintenance of Cimeteries
and memorials
The Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence staff are responsible
for maintaining the French cemeteries, which are striking
in their uniformity and plain style. The lay-out usually includes
ossuaries and a flag-pole flying the French flag. The Department
of the Somme has around 20 national cemeteries.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Established by Royal Charter in 1917,
the then Imperial War Graves Commission was created to carry
out the essential work of maintaining the graves of members
of empire armies who died during the two World Wars and other
wars throughout the British Empire, later the Commonwealth.
Its other fundamental task is to maintain the many memorials
and monuments.
Each cemetery has its Cross of Sacrifice with a sword set
on it, and the Stone of Remembrance bearing a carved quotation
from Ecclesiasticus, 'Their name liveth for evermore'. Almost
every cemetery has a sheltered area for visitors. The overall
result is a very striking architectural feature.
The committee maintains 410 cemeteries in the Somme where
some 129,237 soldiers have their final resting place.
The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge
The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge
is a humanitarian organisation set up in 1919 to identify
the graves of German soldiers in other countries and to preserve
and maintain them.
The largest of the thirteen German cemeteries in the Somme
is at Vermandovillers, the final resting-place of 26,000 soldiers.
The American Battle Monuments Commission
(A.B.M.C.)
The prime object of the United States
war graves service, set up by Federal decision in 1923, is
to maintain the cemeteries containing the graves of the 131,593
men and women who died during various conflicts (the Mexican
War, the First and Second World Wars, Korea, Vietnam), in
foreign lands and on national soil. Its secondary task is
to set up and care for memorials, plaques and monuments.
Each dead person, identified or unknown, is comemorated individually
with a white marble Christian cross or Jewish stone; the names
of those who have no known grave or who are recorded as "missing"
are carved on the inside walls of the oecumenical chapel inside
the cemetery.
Apart from the cemetery and chapel, a fine house provides
accommodation for the superintendent who lives on site and
usually has military experience; a bilingual secretariat deals
with administration and information, while a comfortable lounge
welcomes visitors, who can sign the Visitors' Book.
The reconstruction
Most of the department of the Somme was occupied and devastated
during the war years, 1914-1918. These four years were even
spoken of at times as "the crucifixion of Picardy".
Albert, Péronne and Montdidier were reduced to a pile
of rubble.
The 1920s brought a rearrangement of land holding patterns,
with the small fields of pre-war days swallowed up into large
open areas. This was also the time of reconstruction; all
too rarely based on fundamental thought, houses and public
buildings were rebuilt in haste to pre-war plans, although
they made use of a specific architectural model. The small
brick house is typical of this period. Houses consist of a
kitchen/living-room, one or two bedrooms, an attic and a cellar,
with larger farms built of rendered brick. Public health specialists
of the day encouraged the construction of wider streets, and
the move of cemeteries to the outskirts of towns.
Some towns, however, adopted an overall design of town planning
which reflected new architectural ideas. Albert is a fine
example of the height of Art Déco style.
Two types of building - churches and mairies or town halls
- received particular attention. The town halls of Albert,
Moreuil and Montdidier, all built in Art Déco style,
show impressive scale and decorative design.
Although some churches were rebuilt in haste in neo-romanesque
or neo-gothic style, and have few features of interest, others
received close attention. The basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières
in Albert was rebuilt as an exact reconstruction of its original
neo-Byzantine style. Others were commissioned from architects
who developed new styles.
The church of St. Nicolas at Coullemelle was three-quarters
destroyed in the final German offensive of March-April 1918.
In 1923 two architects, Morel and Petit, began to build a
new church in Neo-romanesque style. Coullemelle is remarkable
for its architectural design and its interior décor,
the work in 1925 of Pierre and Gérard Ansart (hollow
brick arches, stylised capitals, mosaic high altar, stained
glass windows and Stations of the Cross and sgraffiti frieze
by Gaudin).
At Moreuil, reconstruction of the church began in 1929 under
the direction of architects Duval and Gonse. The nineteenth-century
nave and choir were given a deliberately modern façade
built of reinforced concrete and cement with geometrical forms
and vertical lines, and sculptures created by Couvègnes.
Moreuil church also has interesting stained-glass windows
created by the glass-makers Rinuy and Hébert Stevens.
The church at Roye also has a very distinctive feature: the
fifteenth-century apse now adjoins a conspicuously modern
nave of reinforced concrete and brick.
There are many discoveries to be made in this department with
its treasures of the period (the churches at Moislains, Villers-Bretonneux,
Brie, Authuille, Mesnil-Martinsart, etc.). Sadly, almost all
of them are locked - visitors should enquire at the mairie.
The Australiens in
the Somme
Like all the other countries of the British Empire, Australia
immediately came to the support of the "mother country"
at the outbreak of the war in August 1914.
This marked the birth of the Australian Imperial Forces (A.I.F.),
under the command of the British General Birdwood and consisting
entirely of volunteers.
With its neighbours from New Zealand this force set out for
the front, making up the famous Australian and New Zealand
Army Corps, or "ANZAC", whose first important mission,
together with French, English, Newfoundland and Indians troops,
was to mount an attack on the Turkish army, Germany's ally
(the troops disembarked on 25 April 1915 on the Gallipoli
peninsula).
The first bloody battle in France was at Fromelles (Nord),
on 19 July 1916, designed to provide a diversion for the Franco-British
offensive that had been launched on 1 July on the Somme. On
their arrival at Pozières on 23 July 1916, the Australians'
goal was to "unlock" Thiepval.
After intense fighting (at "Gibraltar" and "the
Windmill"), they overcame the village but were unsuccessful
at Mouquet Farm where the Canadians relieved them on 5 September.
Sent to rest after Pozières, the "Diggers"
returned to the Somme in October, in the Flers-Gueudecourt
sector where they suffered the rigours of an exceptionally
severe winter.
With the end of the Battle of the Somme in mid-November, they
settled into their winter quarters like the British, the French
and the Germans.
Back in the Somme again in 1918, the Australians tried to
halt the offensive at Sailly-Laurette on 28 March, at Villers-Bretonneux
on 4 April and at Dernancourt on 5 April: but they distinguished
themselves at Villers-Bretonneux on 25 April - the third anniversary
of Gallipoli.
The Allied counter-offensive, known by the Germans as "the
black day", began on 8 August; the Australians liberated
the area from Villers-Bretonneux to Montbrehain (Aisne), after
first liberating and striking through the Hindenburg Line
with the people of Amiens, on 2 September at Bellenglise and
the tunnel of the Saint-Quentin canal. In October they went
into a rest area, not thinking that the armistice would be
signed a month later.
Apart from its financial and industrial contribution, Australia
provided the greatest military contribution of all the British
dominions: 331,000 volunteers (out of a population of 4,875,000)
- but she also suffered the greatest loses, 64.8 per cent,
or 58,500 men, including 16,000 dead. Paradoxically, however,
it was Australia's participation in the First World War and
her own terrible losses which became a contributing factor
in the birth of this new nation.
The Red Baron
Manfred von Richthofen was a pupil at the Silesian military
school at Wahlstadt from the age of 12. From here he moved
on to the Lichterfede military academy at Potsdam, from where
he graduated as an officer in the Uhlan cavalry in 1911.
When war broke out in 1914 von Richthofen was called to the
French front and, like many cavalry officers, requested a
transfer to the airborne troops.
Initially an observer, he flew for the first time in July
1915 then joined the Jagdstaffel II, where he took command
in 1917 before forming a new unit, the Jagdeschwader I, a
mobile fighter group which shifted constantly along the western
front.
At the end of March 1918 the squadron was based at Cappy.
On 21 April, engaged in action with two Canadian aircraft,
von Richthofen did not realise that he was flying over the
Australian lines: the Australian machine gunners found him
in their sights. He was killed in full flight, his aircraft
crashing near Corbie at the site known as the briqueterie,
or "brick- works". The Australians buried him at
Bertangles with full military honours. The body was transferred
to the German cemetery at Fricourt in 1925, buried later in
Berlin, and found its final resting-place at Wiesbaden.
The aristocratic Manfred von Richthofen became the terror
of the skies between 1914 and 1918, being responsible for
bringing down eighty Allied aircraft on his own. His nickname
was derived from the blood-red colour of his triplane. His
squad as a whole was also known as "the Flying Circus"
because of the bright colours of their craft.
Blaise Cendrars
Frédéric Sauser was born in 1887 at Chaud-de-Fonds,
in Switzerland. At an early age he and his friend Guillaume
Apollinaire were among the founders of modern poetry, in the
search for a direct and emotionally touching style.
On 29 July 1914, he signed on as a volunteer in the Foreign
Legion after writing to his friends : "this war is a
painful labour to give birth to freedom".
After many setbacks he set out on foot with his regiment to
the front line in the Somme where, in common with the whole
Western Front, the long-drawn-out trench war was established.
From mid-December 1914 until February 1915 he was in the line
at Frise (at La Grenouillère and the Bois de la Vache)
where, with his squad of comrades, he set up the feats which
he described in his famous books "La main coupée"
("The Severed Hand") and "J'ai tué"
("I have killed") : "At the Bois de la Vache,
at the Corne au Bois, we held a small post only a few yards
from a small German post. We could have run each other through
with a bayonet from one trench to the other".
Next he moved to the trenches at Herbécourt, still
in the Somme. His regiment was subsequently shifted to the
Artois front, to the north of Arras at Souchez and Vimy Ridge.
After this he returned to the Somme (at Tilloloy) at the beginning
of May.
It was during the bloody attacks in Champagne in September
1915 that Blaise lost his right arm at Navarin, near Souain,
on 28 September. As a result he was of course discharged from
the army.
His writing until his death in 1961 was a literary epic of
the modern adventurer.
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