Europe 2025

Britain doesn’t have an equivalent to our Anzac Day but if they did it would probably be 1 July as on this date in 1916 the Battle of the Somme began and a generation was scarred for life.

The French were desperate for help in Verdun so Britain was going to launch a major attack in the north to force Germany to move troops. They chose the valley of the Somme River. The trouble was they still hadn’t worked out how to fight effectively and the troops were very inexperienced. Coupled with the fact everyone (including the Germans) knew the attack was coming and a bit before the attack they knew when. It was a disaster with over 20000 casualties in one day.

Near a village called Beaumont Hamel the two sides were facing each other. Just before the attack the British moved forward into a sunken road to reduce the distance they had to cover. At 7.20am the British detonated a large mine under the Germans at Hawthorne Ridge, at 7.28 they detonated 14 other mines, and at 7.30 on a bright sunny day they climbed out of their trenches and were cut down in their thousands.

The sunken road at Beaumont Hamel held a lot of troops. When the time came they rushed forward but none made it more than a few yards. A lot of Britons come to this lane to pay their respects.

Up on the hill the mine detonation did temporarily break the line but of course the Germans were closer than the British so they moved reinforcements and machine guns forward to fill the gap.

The crater at Hawthorn Ridge is still there and is very big.

We moved on to the Newfoundland Memorial not far from the crater. This commemorates the actions of the Newfoundlanders who also fought at the Somme. The park still has the trenches and shell holes from the battle. It shows the front lines, the support trenches, communications trenches and the rear trenches. All pock marked with shell holes. It has been well maintained and gives you an idea of what the average soldier could see.

There is also a large statue of a caribou.

We then made a quick visit to the Ulster Tower memorial at Thiepval. This is one of the oldest memorials opening in 1921. I should point out today was easily the coldest day we have experienced so far this whole holiday. It did drizzle off and on but nothing too bad. The Irish Memorial had a coffee shop so we stopped to warm up.

The 1932 Thiepval Memorial to the Missing is easily the largest memorial on the Western Front. There are just under 73000 names with no known grave covering mostly the Somme Battle. It is purely a British memorial except for about 900 South Africans. The memorial is 49.3m tall, the French wouldn’t let it exceed the Arc de Triumph which is 50m tall, but if you count the flag poles ….

Next it was on to the place many Australians fought - Pozieres. For six weeks beginning 23 July 1916, three divisions of the Australian Imperial Force, the First, Second and Fourth Divisions, some 55,000 men, captured and held German positions at Pozières, on the ridge and northwards towards Mouquet Farm. During those operations the AIF suffered more than 23,000 casualties, nearly as many as during the eight months of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.

Tanks were used for the first time by the British and these are commemorated at a memorial near where the windmill was at Pozieres.

As I said there are cemeteries dotted all over this part of Northern France. We dropped into the Adanac War Cemetery which has a lot of Canadian casualties (Adanac is Canada spelt backwards). This is interesting as it has a VC winner plus a large number of sailors who died fighting in the trenches.

Lastly we dropped into the Welsh Memorial. This faces Mametz Wood where they were engaged in vicious fighting. This is easily the most interesting memorial on the battlefield, see photos.

Tonight we had a group dinner as this is the last night of our third and final tour.Read more