10 PLACES THAT TELL THE STORY OF THE SOMME

POETS ON THE SOMME

Major war poets like Robert Graves, Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon all fought here, impacting on the Somme’s cultural legacy.

n a beautiful summer’s morning over a century ago, men of the British Army stepped out into no-man’s land at 7.30am. It was 1 July 1916 and the start of what was then called ‘The Big Push’. With high hopes of a walkover to victory, the Tommies stepped into what can only be described as machine-gun oblivion. By the end of the day more than 57,000 were casualties, with nearly 20,000 dead. But the Battle of the Somme raged on. The Germans were pushed back, new weapons and tactics helped the British Army win battles, then the weather turned the area into a quagmire ending with the coldest winter in Europe for decades. The Pyrrhic victory of the Somme cost more than 400,000 British and Commonwealth casualties and moved World War