Battles of the Somme

The Great War Arrives in Picardy, September 1914

The German Kaiser Wilhelm II arrived in Bapaume on 29th September with his entourage. He was hoping for a victory over the French Army in Picardy followed by a triumphant march to Paris. (1)

By 22nd September 1914, following the First Battle of the Marne (6th – 12th September 1914) and the First Battle of the Aisne (12th – 21st September 1914), the French and German armies began fighting a series of battles side-stepping one another through northern France in an attempt to outflank the other. These outflanking manoeuvres would take them in a north-westerly direction from the Aisne region towards the French coast. This period of fighting became known as “The Race to the Sea”. When the fighting of the First World War arrived in the Somme and Picardy region in September 1914 the British Expeditionary Force was not involved in the first battles of the Somme at that time.

Battles of the Somme, 1914

The Somme Battlefield, 1915

German trench construction in Bernafay Wood (called Bayernwäldchen by the German Army) east of Montauban from 1915. Between the wooden fence and the supporting wooden wall in the photograph a set of stairs led down to one of the deepest German-built bunkers on the Somme. (3)

During 1915 the German Second Army carried out an intensive programme of construction on its Front Line and Second Line from its northern right flank at Monchy-au-Bois, south across the Ancre river valley and over the gently rolling chalk hills to the Somme river.

From August 1915 the British Third Army, commanded by General Sir Edmund Allenby, began to take over a sector of the Front Line north of the river Somme from the French Army. In December 1915 the new British front stretched from Ransart to Curlu on the Somme river. At this time the British Third Army was sandwiched between the French Tenth Army holding 20 miles of Front Line in the Arras sector and the French Sixth Army holding the Front Line south of the Somme river.

The Somme sector remained quiet over the winter of 1915/1916. The German troops busied themselves securing their defences. On both sides of the wire the troops carried on the daily routines of trench life and training.

Battles of the Somme, 1916

Battles of the Somme, 1918

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Cemeteries on the Somme Battlefields

Crosses for German casualties buried at the German military cemetery of Fricourt on the Somme battlefield.

There are over 250 military cemeteries on the Somme battlefields for the many thousands of casualties who have identified graves. The cemeteries range in size from a few battlefield burials to cemeteries containing several thousand individuals. There are graves marked as unidentified for those whose remains were discovered, but it was not possible to identify them. In the case of the French military cemeteries and burial sites there are graves and ossuaries for the remains of French soldiers. The German military cemeteries are on land granted by the French nation for the burial of German dead, but in most cases the soldiers are buried with up to four individuals in each plot and in mass graves marked as “Kameradengraben” (Comrades Grave).

Monuments on the Somme Battlefields

Monuments and memorials on the Somme battlefields range from monuments dedicated to the memory of thousands of troops whose identified remains are missing, to monuments commemorating a specific military unit or an individual.

Thiepval Memorial to the Missing

Thiepval Memorial to the Missing on the Somme battlefield.

The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing commemorates over 72,000 soldiers of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20th March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died during the 1916 Battles of the Somme between July and November 1916.

Museums on the Somme Battlefields