Battle of the Somme 1916: Albert to Thiepval

The Somme story on this route starts in the town of Albert, at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières. On 15 January 1915 a shell hit the statue on top of its tower, and it slumped to a near-horizontal position. Further shelling in 1918 destroyed the tower. The basilica was afterwards faithfully rebuilt according to its original design, and it still stands in the centre of Albert.

訪問のヒント: The basilica stands in the centre of Albert.

Before the battle the British dug 19 mines under the German lines. This one was named after Lochnagar Street, and it was sprung at 7:28 a.m. on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme. It left a crater 21 metres deep and 100 metres wide. The crater has been preserved as a memorial: a memorial cross was put up on its rim in 1986, and a religious service is held here each 1 July.

訪問のヒント: The preserved crater is at La Boisselle, near Albert.

At 8:45 a.m. on 1 July the Newfoundland Regiment and the 1st Battalion of the Essex Regiment received orders to move forward. Most of the Newfoundland Regiment who started forward were dead, dying or wounded within 15 to 20 minutes, and most reached no further than the Danger Tree. Today the park is one of the few places on the former Western Front where a visitor can see the trench lines and no man's land, watched over by a bronze caribou, the regiment's emblem.

訪問のヒント: A preserved battlefield park; keep to the marked paths.

On 1 July 1916 the 36th (Ulster) Division attacked the Schwaben Redoubt, near where the Ulster Tower now stands, gaining in all around a mile. The division's casualties on 1 July totalled over 5,000. At the tower a plaque records the names of the nine men of the division who won the Victoria Cross during the Somme.

場所の精度: The Schwaben Redoubt lay a little north-east of the tower, so the pin marks the memorial, not the trenches.

訪問のヒント: The Ulster Tower stands near the site of the Schwaben Redoubt, close to Thiepval.

The Battle of Delville Wood ran from 15 July to 3 September 1916. The 1st South African Infantry Brigade made its Western Front debut here as part of the 9th (Scottish) Division and captured the wood on 15 July. Today the wood holds the South African memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker and unveiled on 10 October 1926. It stands opposite the Delville Wood Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery.

訪問のヒント: The memorial and the war cemetery face each other at Delville Wood, near Longueval.

The Battle of the Somme lasted 141 days. Its toll is carved at Thiepval, on the memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen; over 90 per cent of them died in the battle between 1 July and 18 November 1916. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the memorial rises 140 feet above its podium. It was built between 1928 and 1932 and inaugurated on 1 August 1932, and it closes the route.

訪問のヒント: The memorial stands near the village of Thiepval.