Amiens, a city right behind the front

After receiving the first contingents of the British Expeditionary Force, on 30 August 1914 the city of Amiens was captured by the Germans, who abandoned it after the Marne victory of September 1914. During this short occupation, the local population was treated very severely and suffered heavy requisitioning. Following the German retreat, the city, in French then British hands, remained very exposed to German artillery fire and aerial bombardments for the remainder of the war. In March 1918, this strategic location was bitterly disputed. At a cost of major sacrifices from the British Army and the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the pressure from the Germans was finally lifted in August 1918.

The Battles of the Somme, 1914-18

The first engagements on the Somme took place during the “Race to the Sea”, a manoeuvre which saw each of the belligerents attempt to outflank the other to the north. It was a failure: the front became entrenched and the Germans dug themselves in solidly along the Bapaume to Péronne road. From then on, the war in the trenches raged from Beaumont-Hamel to Beuvraignes, heightened by tunnel warfare. In July 1915, the British forces took over control of this sector from the French, whose 10th Army was assigned to the defence of Chaulnes to the south, while its 6th Army occupied both banks of the Somme.

In August 1919, the city of Amiens received an army citation, stating that “for four years, it withstood the bombardments and threat of the enemy with unwavering courage and dignity”.

The biggest offensive, carried out primarily by the British, took place in 1916, when General Joffre decided to attack in a “quiet” sector, at the juncture of the French and British armies.

The original plan to batter the enemy was upset by operations in Verdun, which reduced by half the number of French troops assigned to the offensive. The high command therefore decided to conduct a Franco-British operation, supported by strong artillery. General Haig lined up a large number of infantry battalions, all of them inexperienced, with the aim of making a large-scale breakthrough. On 24 June 1916, the artillery preparation got underway, but poor weather conditions meant that the assault was put back to 1 July.

The first days saw heavy losses, and the offensive soon descended into a war of attrition, in which the British, failing to secure any major successes, paid a high price. However, the Germans were forced to withdraw artillery from the Verdun area, so that one of the objectives of the Franco-British operation was achieved.

The progress of the French force, comprised of more experienced units, was more tangible than that of the British and Commonwealth contingents. With fresh reinforcements, the French attempted to develop their actions north of the Somme, but progress fell short of expectations. For ten weeks, the Allied troops chipped away at the German positions, without making a decisive breakthrough. The commanders-in-chief of the Allied armies therefore decided to suspend the overall offensive, but to keep up the pressure on the enemy by launching partial attacks at regular intervals and bringing the first tanks into play. On 18 November 1916, the offensive finally came to an end.

From the map, the Allied troops may appear to have made a dramatic advance, but in fact they moved forward only three miles during the whole battle. The human cost was extremely high. By the end of the offensive, the Germans had lost 650 000 men, the French nearly 200 000. For the British, the Somme remains the biggest military disaster of the 20th century, with the sacrifice of 420 000 men.

Situated in Le Mont de Sucre, south of Neuville-Saint-Vaast, the national necropolis of Maroeuil, created in 1919, contains the remains of 585 French soldiers who died in the battles of Artois between 1914 and 1918. In the centre is a monument erected in 1919 to the memory of Major Georges Lilleman of the 156th infantry regiment, killed on 9th May 1915 in La Targette and interred in the necropolis. Financed by the officer’s parents, the monument honours, with its epitaph “Brave soldiers who shed your blood for your country – we salute you”, the memory of the dead of the 156th and 160th infantry regiments, particularly Father Grosjean, a stretcher-bearer assigned as chaplain to the 156th, whose citation is a witness to the commitment of these two units: “Kept pressing his commanding officer for permission to accompany the battle assault troops on 9th May 1915. Constantly showed himself in the most dangerous places on 9th and 10th May, exhorting and encouraging his fellows, dressing the wounds of the injured, ensuring that they were picked up speedily, in a word, being a constant example of courage, good humour and charity.” (Official Journal, 2nd August 1915).

Nearby is the Maroeuil British Cemetery created by the 51st (Highland) Division, today containing the remains of 531 British servicemen, thirty Canadians and eleven Germans.

The French soldiers include Henri Gaudier aka Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (grave 936), a painter and sculptor, precursor in France of the British artistic movement vorticism. A sergeant in the 129th infantry regiment, he died on 5th June 1915 at the age of 23 in Neuville-Saint-Vaast.

The remains from World War II include those of Paul Nizan (grave 8189) and Jeanne Bartet (grave 8352). The latter, an army nurse who belonged to the Union des Femmes de France de Bordeaux, was killed on 21st May 1940 near ambulance number 257 (Labroye). Paul Nizan, novelist, essayist, journalist and translator, was killed on 23rd May 1940 in Oudricq during the German attack on Dunkirk.

A monument has been erected to the memory of the soldiers of the 15th army corps who fell in August 1914.

Nearby are the Cabaret Rouge British cemetery and also the biggest German cemetery in Europe, Maison Blanche, which contains more than 44,000 graves. To the north of La Targette, towards Souchez, are two monuments, one placed at the entrance to the Czechoslovakian cemetery, honouring the memory of Polish and Czechoslovakian Foreign Legion volunteers.

Covering an area of 25 hectares, the cemetery holds over 40,000 bodies, half of which are in individual graves, and the other half are divided into seven ossuaries. It is France’s largest national cemetery.

Some foreign soldiers (Belgian, Romanian and Russian) are also buried there. French soldiers killed in WWII were also buried there.

Amongst the graves, you can find the grave of a father and his son who died on the battlefield in 1915 and 1918. Six other graves hold the bodies of a father killed in WWI and a son killed in WWII.

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Among these soldiers are buried General Janssen, commander of the 12th Motorized Infantry Division (DIM), killed on 2nd June 1940 during the aerial bombardments of the fort. There is a plaque at the entrance to Fort des Dunes, in remembrance of him and his men who fell alongside him during those first days of June 1940. A second plaque is dedicated “A la mémoire du Lieutenant Colonel Le Notre commandant les forces terrestres et aériennes de la première Armée des Officiers, Sous-officiers et soldats des F.T.A. tombés à leur poste de combat en ces lieux le 03 juin 1940 [To the memory of Our Lieutenant Colonel commanding the land and air forces of the first army of Officers, NCOs and soldiers of the FTA who fell at their battle stations at this place on 3rd June 1940].” In the fort, at the entrance to the Military Police building, a plaque honours the memory of the gendarmes of the Military Police of the 12th Motorized Infantry Division who died for France on 3rd June 1940. In the moat of the fort, there is a final plaque in memory of the eight resistant fighters who were shot dead on that very spot on 6th June 1944.

In the town cemetery nearby are two military plots containing 119 Belgian and 141 British soldiers and six military workers – five Egyptians and one Malagasy – who died as a result of their wounds in the same hospitals.

From the outset of operations in 1914, the civilian and military hospitals of Dunkirk and the surrounding area took in a great many wounded from the Yser front. Very soon, they were overwhelmed. Schools, care homes, even the Zuydcoote sanatorium and the Malo and Malo-Terminus casinos, were requisitioned to receive growing numbers of wounded.

The Battles of the Yser, 1914-18

After abandoning Antwerp and retreating from Flanders, the Belgian, French and British armies established a new front on the Yser, between the North Sea coast and Dixmude. Ten miles long, this sector was bitterly contested. To hold back the repeated attacks from the Germans, the Belgians resisted valiantly, using all the means at their disposal. In autumn, the dykes burst, flooding no man’s land and the enemy trenches. From 16 October, the naval fusiliers of Rear Admiral Ronarc’h’s brigade defended Dixmude inch by inch, alongside the 4th Moroccan Battalion, the 1st Algerian Battalion and the Belgian Army. 

After 25 days of uninterrupted fighting, on 10 November the enemy took Dixmude. Further south, at Ypres, from 31 October to 2 November, the enemy launched furious assaults that broke on the Franco-British lines. Neither adversary gave way. The first Battle of Ypres ended with no real result. The town remained at centre stage throughout the war, particularly in the spring of 1915, when a new weapon was tested: poison gas.

Throughout the conflict, ever more bloody operations were carried out in this sector, especially in spring 1915 and in summer 1917, when 240 000 British soldiers were killed.