By 1917, ‘battlefield tourism’ had begun in the liberated areas of the Western Front: family members of British and French dead, and many curiosity seekers, wandered the 1914 – 1916 battlefields and visited the regions from which the Germans had withdrawn. The British vistors included a number of writers and historians from the recently founded Imperial War Museum in London, and the latter proved the inspiration for the creation of places of remembrance in those localities where British soldiers had fought and died.
In November 1920, the French Chamber of Deputies agreed a Bill declaring World War remnants ‘historical monuments’, and a year later the Chamber identified a total of 236 monuments (infantry trenches, MG posts, forts, craters, etc.) as being places along the former Western Front which had been of decisive importance to France for the outcome of the war. These were to be preserved unconditionally. At the same time the military cemeteries laid down during the war, and which were of varying sizes, were to be reorganized and their numbers reduced substantially by amalgamation. In 1925 there were throughout France 174 French, 165 German and seventy-six mixed-nationality cemeteries.1
After the war the Somme region experienced a record influx of visitors, particularly people who had been left at home during the fighting, and British and French battlefield tourists. After the mid – 1920s numbers of Germans travelled to the Somme to visit the graves of fallen family members, mostly under the auspices of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. founded in 1919. Nowadays about 300,000 visitors come annually to visit the Great War military cemeteries and places of remembrance on the Somme, including 100,000 from abroad, primarily Britain.
German military cemeteries on the Somme are easily recognized by the black crosses in metal or stone, often in the centre of a park: the French by a simple white cross and the flagpole with the French tricolour. The gravestones bear, if known, the name of the fallen soldier, his rank and as a rule the date of death. The French headstones have the inscription Died for France next to the military unit. The British cemeteries are very numerous in the area since there was little option to bury their fallen comrades where they lay. British cemeteries are marked by a ‘Cross of Sacrifice’ where there are more than forty dead, and with a ‘Stone of Remembrance’ for more than 1,000 dead. Remembrance tablets carry frequently the biblical inscription Their Name Liveth for Ever More: the headstones bear the name, date of death and the regiment of other unit. On the gravestones of the unidentified fallen is found the simple quotation A Soldier Known Unto God from Rudyard Kipling.
Today the Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains in the entire Somme region about 410 cemeteries containing 130,000 graves of the fallen from Great Britain, the former dominions including Australia, Canada and South Africa, and the former colonies. The French Defence Ministry cares for the twenty national military cemeteries on the Somme, while the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. is responsible for the maintenance and care of thirteen cemeteries with German dead. There are twenty-two, 632 German fallen alone in the amalgamated Vermandovillers cemetery set down in 1920.
A museum with annexed research centre dedicated to the Great War was initiated in 1986 by the General Council of the Département of the Somme. The project was realized with the help of French and international historians and Great War experts, and the Historial de la Grande Guerre was opened in the Péronne fortress on 16 July 1992. The building, in white reinforced concrete, and designed by the French architect Henri-Edouard Ciriani in the Le Corbusiers tradition, is immediately alongside the old fortress ruin (a brick structure) through which visitors pass to access the actual museum.
The tri-lingual (English, French and German) museum is neither a place of remembrance nor a war museum but is oriented towards understanding the social and psychological effect the war had on the populations and fighting men of the nations involved. The ‘trenches’ set into the white marble floor symbolizing the chalky soil of the Somme are intended to make trench life comprehensible. Uniforms spread across the floor are adorned with all kinds of personal and military memorabilia. Above the replica trenches is an exhibition of trench art by soldiers of the time. This reflects the conditions of military life, the mood before an attack, the sorrow at the loss of a comrade, also hygiene, the food, humour, leave at the front, etc., in a war increasingly mechanized and anonymous.
The glass walls of the exhibition hall are devoted to the civilian populations. Each theme is spread across three storeys (Germany upper floor, France middle, Britian the ground floor). This allows a systematic comparison of the similarities and differences in the pre-war and wartime cultures of the great nations fighting on the Western Front. In four great exhibition halls the immediate history and causes of the Great War are explained. Everyday life in wartime and the increasing totalization of warfare by technology and industry: the political and cultural consequences for European society in the remainder of the twentieth century are also considered. The unique Historial collection of commercial and everyday objects includes artwork. The brutal transformation and contradictions which the war engendered are well portrayed by the Der Krieg series of paintings from the German artist Otto Dix. These are found in the entrance hall. Dix, a volunteer at the Somme front, spent six years after the war completing his work which bears witness to the trauma of industrialized warfare.
A curious example of soldierly morale is the giant wooden board with the insciption Nicht ärgern nur wundern (Don’t be angry, just admire) which the Germans fixed on the heavily damaged council house at Péronne in 1917. The edifice had been severely damaged by British artillery. Shortly afterwards the Germans pulled back to the Siegfried Line leaving their own trail of total devastation.
Contemporary film material from the Great War shown at fifty video posts throughout the museum highlights the importance of photography and film technology in the war for official propaganda and personal memories. The Historial regularly exhibits to various themes: outstanding personalities in politics and literature, religion and religiousness, the everyday life of the peoples in occupied regions, children in war, the Treaty of Versailles in the perception of the Germans, the architecture of the reconstructed Somme after 1919, the contradictory works of contemporary artists. Coverage of the Battle of the Somme of 1916, and the final battle in Picardy in the spring of 1918, are included in the Historial exhibition in order to provide the visitor with a better understanding of the regional war events.
The Historial has set up a special ‘Remembrance Circuit’ for visitors to the military cemeteries and memorials. The route is marked by the red poppy insignia on local signposts. There is also an audio trail compiled from the writings of many authors who fought on the Somme.
1 – The Historial de la Grande Guerre is in the Péronne town centre. In the Great War Péronne was a strategic hub for the German armies and therefore an important goal of the 1916 Allied offensive. This offensive stopped short of the gates of the badly damaged town. Like most towns and villages in the area, Péronne has been almost completely rebuilt in the brick style characteristic of the region. At the Rue Saint Denis-Avenue MacOrlan crossroads there is a post-war temporary building. MacOrlan was a writer from Péronne who fought close to his native town. The monument with the inscription Picardy curses War and the despairing mother with raised clenched fist is the work of sculptor Paul Auban.
2 – At Flaucourt towards Biaches is one of the few German memorials from the Great War still standing. Most of the others were destroyed during the war or shortly after. In a field above the street are the remains of a small cemetery. A plaque on a brick wall reads Zur Ehre der für Kaiser und reich gefallenen Söhne Deutschlands – In honour of the sons of Germany fallen for Kaiser and Reich.
3 – At Frise overlooking the bend in the river there is a fine panorama of the whole Somme valley. One can find here the remains of French and German trenches from 1915. In the summer of 1916 the seam between the British and French armies ran through Maricourt, north of the Somme.
4 – At Mametz a memorial to the 38th Welsh Division dedicated in 1987 recalls the bitter fighting for the neighbouring wood. The locality was taken by British forces on 1 July, but the Germans held the wood itself until 12th. The memorial with the red dragon is reached along the Welsh Road in the village.
5 – Fricourt, which fell on 2 July 1916, was a heavily fortified village in one of the advanced front sections held by the Germans. In the German cemetery to the north of the village the ‘Red Baron’, fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, was interred after he was shot down over the Somme in April 1918. His remains were re-interred at Wiesbaden subsequently.
6 – Albert is even today a place bound up with much emotion for many British. During the autumn of 1914 it was repeatedly shelled by German artillery. In January 1915 a shell hit the bell of the neo-Byzantine basilica. The gold-plated statue of the Virgin Mary, which towered over the edifice, remained at a horizontal angle until the spring of 1918. This gave rise to the legend of the ‘Hanging Madonna of Albert’: on the day when the statue fell, the war would be over. When the Germans besieged the town during their 1918 offensive, the British destroyed the church to prevent its use for orientation purposes. Albert, totally devastated in the war, owes its reconstruction to the city of Birmingham. Beside the basilica is a small, fairly conventional war museum ‘Somme 1916.’ The imposing town hall underlines the significance accorded after 1919 to rebuilding the area.
7 – In the village of La Boisselle is the Lochnagar crater where every 1 July at 0730 – marking the beginning of the great Somme battle in 1916 – a simple but moving service of remembrance is held. The crater has a diameter of 100 metres and is thirty metres deep. It was created by detonating twenty-seven tonnes of ammoniac explosive. Dust and rubble were ejected up to 1,000 metres. The subsequent attack by Irish and Scots regiments came to nothing, and the greatest crater of the Great War became an icon for the Battle of the Somme. Lochnagar is owned by Englishman Richard Dunning, who ensures that it remains accessible to the public. The unevenness of the ground in the vicinity recalls the heavy shelling common in the region from October 1914. Every year about fifty tonnes of war material comes to the surface in the Somme region. The signposts on the road from Albert to Bapaume (D – 929) show the various stages of the slow British advance.
8 – In the village of Pozieres situated on an elevation, only the foundations remain of ‘Gibraltar’, a command post called ‘Das Blockhaus’ by the Germans. The 1916 battle can be accurately followed with the aid of the orientation table. The command post ‘Die Windmühle’ (named after a seventeenth century windmill on the site) in the German second line of trenches no longer exists. A metal plaque on the spot recalls the 2nd Australian Division which suffered heavy losses in the fighting for Pozieres. Facing the elevation, directly on the highway, is a memorial with four miniature tanks recalling the first British tank attack in September 1916.
9 – The elevation of the (disappeared) village Thiepval was the axis of the German defence in the north of the Somme. Thiepval became the place where the British sustained their greatest losses in the period from 1 July to 26 September (the day when it fell). At this location so important for British war memories, a memorial was dedicated in 1932 in memory of the British and South Africans missing in the Somme fighting. There are more than 73,000 names on the sixteen columns of the imposing monument which is visible for miles. The Ulster Tower at Thiepval, built in 1921, is the replica of a tower in Belfast, and remembers the soldiers of the province who fought on the Somme.
10 – Beaumont-Hamel is the official place of remembrance for Newfoundland, a British colony of the time. The Newfoundland Park of Remembrance dedicated in 1925, the work of landscape architect Rudolph Cochius, is sixteen hectares in extent. A number of trenches have been preserved. Of the 801 Newfoundlanders who took part in the attack of 1 July 1916, only sixty-eight survived. The Hill (Caribou Hill) with the bronze sculpture of a reindeer, allows a good view over this bitterly fought battlefield. The German front line ran only 100 metres from here to the rear of the present parkland. A memorial in the form of a kilted Scots soldier marks the capture of German positions on 13 November 1916 by the 51st Highland Division. A new information centre supplies interesting details about the Battle of the Somme and a chronicle of the fighting in this region.
11 – Courcelette is the official place of remembrance for the Canadians, who from September to November 1916 had two divisions fighting on the Somme. The total Canadian losses are estimated at 24,000. In 1964 at Martinpuich, where in mid-September tanks were used in warfare for the first time, German veterans laid a plaque at the foot of the local memorial.
12 – Longueval is the place of remembrance for the South Africans. In the wood at Delville the South African Infantry Brigade experienced its baptism of fire from German artillery in mid-July 1916. Of its 3,200 men only 143 returned unwounded. Behind the national monument dedicated in 1926, sixty years later the South African Government set up a museum recalling the deployment of (white) South Africans in the Great War and elsewhere. At Longueval there is a second memorial park and the Caterpillar Valley cemetery. These both recall the involvement of 1st New Zealand Division and its heavy losses in the autumn of 1916 when 1,560 soldiers were killed and 5,440 wounded in twenty-three days.
13 – The village of Guillemont was almost completely destroyed in the fighting. Two entrances to a preserved German concrete command post are found on the outskirts of the village.
14 – Rancourt is one of the few locations to have the cemeteries of various nationalities (German, French and British). The French chapel of remembrance resulted from a private initiative in memory of the only son of the du Bos family, fallen for France.
Other places in the Somme recall the fighting in the spring and summer of 1918. Villers-Bretonneux formed the outermost limit of the Germans’ westward offensive. The Australians, who finally brought the German advance to a stop here, erected a memorial on this spot to their missing soldiers in 1938. It carried the names of their troops who have no grave (on D – 23). The special relationship between the Départment of the Somme and the Australian continent became closer in 1993, after the exhumation of the remains of an unknown soldier from the Adélaide military cemetery and their transfer to Canberra. The small museum on the first floor of the local Victoria School was a gift from Australian schoolchildren in Victoria. It documents the deployment of Australian troops at the first tank battle in history with the use of models, photographs and uniforms.
The Australian memorial park at Le Hamel south of Albert (not to be confused with Beaumont-Hamel) recalls the fighting preceding the so-called Black Day of the German Army (8 August 1918 according to Ludendorff).
On 4 July 1918 General Monash succeeded, with US support, in a modern offensive using artillery, infantry, aircraft and tanks. The first significant attack by US units on the Somme took place at Catigny near Montdidiers on 28 May 1918. This operation is remembered by a monument to the 1st US Division (Big Red One). The graves of the US dead of 1917 and 1918 are found in the American Somme Cemetery at Bony (Aisne).
At Noyelles-sur-Mer north-east of Abbeville a small pagoda can be seen in the cemetery recalling the almost 100,000 Chinese non-combatant labourers used behind the front. According to the agreement between their Governements, the Chinese were allotted transport and trench work by the British and French from April 1917. After the war they performed clearance work on the Somme.
The variety of memorial and sites to visit in the region underlines the large number of nations sending troops to fight and die on the Somme. This applies particularly to Africans and Asians who worked there within the framework of the Allied war effort, often under the most appalling conditions. The preserved, or in part newly erected places of remembrance also indicate the great effort made by the Département of the Somme to keep alive the memory of the Great War, and so fulfil its obligation to history.
Susanne Brandt: Vom Kriegsschauplatz zum Gedächtnisraum: Die Westfront 1914 – 1940, Baden-Baden, 2000, p.129ff.