Major Tonie Holt - Major & Mrs Holts Definitive Battlefield Guide Somme

At the going down of the sun

By the same authors:

Picture Postcards of the Golden Age: A Collectors Guide

Till the Boys Come Home: WW1 Through its Picture Postcards. 2014

The Best of Fragments from France by Capt Bruce Bairnsfather

The Biography of Capt Bruce Bairnsfather: In Search of the Better Ole. 2014

Picture Postcard Artists: Landscapes, Animals and Characters

Stanley Gibbons Postcard Catalogue: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1987

Germany Awake! The Rise of National Socialism illustrated by Contemporary Postcards

Ill be Seeing You: the Picture Postcards of World War II

Holts Battlefield Guidebooks: Normandy-Overlord/Market-Garden/Somme/Ypres

Visitors Guide to the Normandy Landing Beaches

Battlefields of the First World War: A Travellers Guide

Major & Mrs Holts Concise Guide to the Ypres Salient

Major & Mrs Holts Battle Maps: Normandy/Somme/Ypres/Gallipoli/MARKET-GARDEN

Major & Mrs Holts Battlefield Guide to the Ypres Salient + Battle Map

Major & Mrs Holts Battlefield Guide to Gallipoli + Battle Map

Major & Mrs Holts Battlefield Guide to MARKET-GARDEN (Arnhem) + Battle Map

Major & Mrs Holts Definitive Battlefield Guide to the Somme + Battle Map

Major & Mrs Holts Definitive Battlefield Guide to the Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches

Violets From Oversea: Reprinted 1999 as Poets of the Great War

My Boy Jack: The Search for Kiplings Only Son. Revised limpback 2014

Major & Mrs Holts Guide to the Western Front North

Major & Mrs Holts Guide to the Western Front South

Major & Mrs Holts Pocket Battlefield Guide to Ypres & Passchendaele

Major & Mrs Holts Pocket Battlefield Guide to the Somme 1916/1918

Major & Mrs Holts Pocket Battlefield Guide to D-Day. Normandy Landing Beaches

This book first published in 1996, Second Edition 1998, Reprinted 1999, Third Edition 2000. Fourth Revised Edition 2003. Fifth Revised Edition 2007. Sixth Revised, expanded Edition 2008. This Revised, much-expanded Edition 2016 by

Pen & Sword MILITARY

an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Limited
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS

ISBN-10: 0 85052 414 8
PRINT ISBN: 978 1 47386 672 0
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47386 675 1
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47386 674 4
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47386 673 7

Text copyright Tonie and Valmai Holt, 2016
Except where otherwise credited, all illustrations remain the copyright of Tonie and Valmai Holt.

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.

The right of Tonie and Valmai Holt to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Palatino by Pen & Sword Books Limited
Printed and bound in Singapore by: Kyodo Printing Co (Singapore) Pte Ltd

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church St, Barnsley, S Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
email:
website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

CONTENTS

by Somme Tourist Director, Franois Bergez

LIST OF MAPS

Foreword

by Franois Bergez, Director of Somme Tourism

T he Somme was deeply marked by the battles of the First World War: the August invasion and the race to the sea in September 1914, the battle of the Somme from July to November 1916, the German spring offensive in March 1918 and the consequent Allied counter-offensives in Picardy from August to September 1918. In 1916, in contrast to the Franco-German dual at Verdun, the Somme became a world arena: a meeting point for more than 20 nationalities and where three million soldiers fought on the 45-kilometre front line.

Nowadays the Somme is amazingly quiet and peaceful, hard to imagine the human tragedy which took place 100 years ago. Every year some 300,000 visitors from the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, South Africa and many other countries come to the battlefields for remembrance and to pay respect to the men who fought and gave their lives during the Great War but also to have a better understanding of this terrible page of our history. By walking in the footsteps of these men and visiting the numerous cemeteries, memorials and traces of the battlefields, visitors can nearly imagine the scale of the disaster.

You now have in hand the most helpful, practical and detailed battlefield guide to make the best of your visit in the Somme. This battlefield guide, written and regularly updated by Major and Mrs. Holt, will be needed to prepare and organise your journey whether you are a first time visitor or a frequent visitor to the area. You will be able to choose between three approach routes and six recommended itineraries depending on your interest and time availability. Because Major and Mrs Holt have been touring, travelling and exploring the Somme for well over 35 years they are able to talk like locals (or even better!) and share with us through this guidebook their own moving experience of the battlefields. Knowing each country road, trail, cemetery, memorial and site perfectly, they have chosen not to write another academic history book on the Somme but have developed their own and efficient way to help you visit and experience the battlefields by revealing, not only the battles and action, but also by giving human, historical and literary information which depict an essential dimension of the Great War.

When reading and using this great guide book you will come across personal, family or regimental stories, it will take you from the largest and most well-known memorials to the smallest and well-hidden ones in the country side. Major and Mrs Holt have kept the secret of making it very informative and yet pleasant reading.

Interest in remembrance and history will undoubtedly increase during the centenary. Media coverage, new books, movies, conferences and ceremonies will definitely help to bring a better understanding of each aspect of the Great War, including its causes and consequences. However, information and knowledge of this world war would be insufficient if not completed by a trip to see landscapes, remains of the battlefields, British and Commonwealth, French and German cemeteries, memorials and museums.

Franois Bergez, Director Somme Tourism

When I was a child, I had always wondered when seeing French WWI veterans at the Monument aux Morts on November 11th, what they had lived through, seen and endured during the Great War. I was just a kid and never had the mind to question them and still regret it.

Years later, I moved to the Somme region and one of my British friends gave me a tour on the battlefields. We visited many WWI sites and cemeteries such as Serre N1 and N2 Cemeteries, the small Railway Hollow cemetery located further up the hill and close to the Accrington Pals memorial. As I was looking at the graves, I stopped a bit longer in front of the grave stone of Private A. Goodlad from the York and Lancaster Regiment. The engraved message read The French are a grand nation worth fighting for. He was 23 and died on July 1st 1916. I felt very moved by his message and since then my desire that the sacrifice of these men never be forgotten has grown stronger each day.