WWI in The Somme

Where can I begin about today's historical sights? This is such a beautiful part of the country, and all I can say is what a tragic, wasteful, horrifying loss of human life. I've taught WWI in my history class for 19 years, and I can tell you that I've never really understood the human cost until today. We drove by more than 100 WWI cemeteries and memorials, all within 20 minutes of Albert, and we stopped at fewer than 10 of them. Literally every little town we drove through had a statue, memorial, military cemetery, or some other commemoration for WWI. In addition to that, we were driving out through farmland all day, and there were too many cemeteries to count that were located out in the middle of someone's fields. We could have stopped at one every few minutes. It is simply unconscionable that, at the Battle of the Somme alone, the cost to the Allies was almost 624,000 casualties - nearly 420,000 of them British.

Every single town in the Somme region was completely leveled by this battle. People came back after the war and literally had to rebuild everything - homes, farmland, fences, businesses, streets, churches, etc. Towns and houses were rebuilt quickly with brick buildings instead of the typical creamy stones of older French cities. Public health leaders encouraged the building of wider streets, and cemeteries were moved to the outskirts of town. (The pic to the right is the town of Albert.)

Meanwhile, farmers came back to something even more unusual; they found makeshift cemeteries in the middle of their fields. Those pieces of land the cemeteries were on became the property of France (or Britain) and the farmers then gave up more land for access roads to these cemeteries. I don't know if they minded or not, what with all the rebuilding required everywhere else, but again it just reminds me that war always affects so many more people than just the soldiers that most people think of first. But it really is amazing to be driving through this beautiful farmland, with fields as far as the eye can see, and then to randomly come across a dirt road leading out to 100 white stone markers in the middle of a wheat field. (The pic at the left shows a good example - two cemeteries in the middle of fields, out in the middle of nowhere. Obviously, I got this one off the internet.)

No one in this region of France will ever be able to forget what happened here because there are physical reminders everywhere. And because this area was mostly where British troops were fighting the Germans, there are British tourists everywhere. We must have seen 20 different British school groups on field trips today, and we heard more English being spoken than French. The British take this war extremely seriously because it impacted them so much. 60,000 lost on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. One million deaths in the entire war, and that's from Britain alone! From that little tiny country! It's 1.3 million deaths if you count the other soldiers who belonged to the greater British Empire. It's unimaginable.

As you can tell, we could've spent weeks in this place if we wanted to see every single sight, but we chose the most memorable ones to focus on. We began our morning at the Museum of the Somme 1916, right here in Albert. It was a great museum, especially for students. It's located in the underground bomb shelters (hallways) of the Basilica of the Virgin, right in the center of the town. It has a lot of informative exhibits, including mannequin displays of different scenes from the trenches of WWI. The mannequins are a little old school, but I didn't mind. It was really interesting to see all the different uniforms, artifacts, etc. in each scene. There was also a long dark tunnel we walked through at the end where all you heard was a recording of the explosions and gunfire that would've been going on non-stop in trenches. I can see why so many school groups visit this museum.

 

This picture shows artifacts found after the war was over, and the next one shows something named "trench art." All the items in the picture are pieces of art created by the soldiers from shell casings and other pieces of metal found in and around the trenches. There are etchings on shells, hand made airplanes, etc. They are really beautiful. Some of these men were very skilled!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the museum, we headed out of town to the Lochnager Crater located in the middle of someone's farm. It was created on July 1, 1916 when the British tunneled under the German front lines and detonated enough explosives to create multiple craters. The only one remaining is the Lochnager; it's 100 meters in diameter and 30 meters deep. It's so huge that I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing, so I had to find two online for you to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up was Thiepval. The memorial at Thiepval is one of the most moving memorials I've seen on this trip. It is a gigantic structure that is built on a slight rise so it's visible for miles around. It commemorates the 73,367 British and South African men who fell during the Battle of the Somme and who are unidentified. They have no known graves, and their names are engraved on the square pillars that form the base of the structure. It was just so emotional to read name after name as we walked through the memorial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture to the right is a commonly seen token of remembrance at all the Somme memorials. This one made me cry more than any of the others. The top three sides of the cross say granddaughter, great granddaughter, and great great grandson; then the bottom has the name of their lost family member, J. Harrison. This token was placed right below his name on the wall (see the picture below). That's so amazing to see that his descendants still come here to remember him!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, beyond the memorial and down a slight hill sits a French-British cemetery; it was paid for equally by both countries and 300 dead from each country lie here. On the left are the simple crosses for the French soldiers, and on the right are the white stones for the fallen British soldiers. A beautiful and emotional place!

 

 

This is an exhibit inside the Thiepville visitor's center which shows the faces of several hundred of the thousands of missing soldiers commemorated at this site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a few minutes down the road is the Ulster Tower which commemorates the Irish soldiers who fell during the Battle of the Somme. It's an exact replica of tower located near the Irish division's training camp in Belfast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our next stop was the Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont-Hamel (B & H are two small adjoining towns). The main feature of the 16 acre park is a tall, grassy mound topped by a towering caribou who looks out over the trenches and bomb craters of the battlefield. It's an impressive and powerful memorial, and seeing the trenches up close was amazing! We've seen some of the Civil War trenches on the East Coast, but never ones from WWI. This was a really great experience!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along the way to Longueval, we noticed another large cemetery on the side of the road, so we stopped to take a look. It was the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, so named by the soldiers because of the twists and turns of the valley it's in. Like all the other British cemeteries, it made us very emotional. One of the stones was engraved in Moari to commemorate a fallen soldier of New Zealand.

 

 

 

The memorial at Longueval is really quite fantastic. It's for the fallen South African soldiers of the British Commonwealth, and it is huge. The memorial sits on one side of the road (in a huge green park), and across the road is the South African Cemetery. Both are striking and emotional. Behind the main statue of the memorial is a beautiful star shaped building which mimics the coastal forts in South Africa. In it is a beautiful series of exhibits about their soldiers and the Battle of the Somme as a whole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next to last stop was the German cemetery of Fricourt. This cemetery looks very different than the WWII German cemetery in Normandy. This one has very simple, thin iron crosses that mark the graves. Most of the crosses mark the site of four graves (one name on each arm of the cross, and the same on the other side of it). These dark crosses make the cemetery seem very dark and depressing. And interestingly enough, there were about 10-15 rounded stone markers for the German Jewish soldiers of the Somme. My first question was whether or not these markers were taken down when Hitler came to power in Germany, and/or if new markers were put up after WWII ended. I need to look that up online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our final sight of the day was the Welsh Division Memorial at Mametz. This is probably the most modern and mythic memorial we've seen. We drove for about 15 minutes down a long, winding one-lane road that sloped down towards Mametz Wood. We almost missed the memorial because its path up to it is so far out in the middle of nowhere and kind of hidden between grassy hills. But once we found the path and started walking up to the top, that bright red dragon appeared above us and made us laugh with joy that we were able to see something so fantastic. It's really quite a sight after all the other more traditional memorials! We loved it and were so glad we took the time to find it!

 

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