The Somme Battlefield

By Peter Furtado | Published in History Today Volume: 56 Issue: 7 2006

Peter Furtado introduces one of the most traumatic places in British military history.

An early model British Mark I "male" tank, named C-15, near Thiepval, 25 September 1916

A drive through the smoothly rolling hills of the east of the Somme department of northern France, between the little towns of Albert, Bapaume and Peronne, might seem innocent enough at first sight, but for the profusion of small, quiet and manicured cemeteries. A closer look at the recently ploughed fields reveals ghostly white lines snaking across the brown earth on the hillsides; while here and there, a rusty shell lies by the roadside, placed there by a farmer for safe disposal. The villages look as peaceful as any in France – though there’s little that looks more than a century old. But it wouldn’t be easy even with these clues, to work out just what happened here. This is a countryside that needs to be read – and read about – rather than just looked at.

This article is available to History Today online subscribers only. If you are a subscriber, please log in.

Please choose one of these options to access this article:

Purchase a online subscription and receive unlimited access to our archive for one week, one month or a year

Purchase a print and website subscription, giving you one year's access to all our content and 12 editions of History Today magazine.

If you are already a print subscriber, purchase the online archive upgrade for a year's worth of access at a reduced price

Call our Subscriptions department on +44 (0)20 3219 7813 for more information.

If you are logged in but still cannot access the article, please contact us

Tags: Military,First World War,France,

If you enjoyed this article, you might like these:

This Month's Magazine

Subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter:

From The Current Issue

History Today App

From The Archive

Lords of the Northern Forest

The Hudson's Bay Company was one of the central forces moulding the development of the vast tracts of land that today are Canada - but as Barry Gough explains here, the circumstances of its launch in 1670 also reveal much about the commercial forces, personalities and rivalries of Restoration England.