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The bodies of many thousands of men were never identified.
A large number were buried in military cemeteries beneath
a headstone marked ‘A Soldier of the Great War Known
Unto God’, but it was felt that the name of every man
who was killed should be marked publicly in the area where
he died.
A series of great memorials to the missing now marks the main
battle areas along the Western Front, with several in the
Somme. The Memorial to the Missing at Thiepval carries the
names of over 72,000 men of the British Army and South Africa
who were killed in this area, mostly in the Battle of the
Somme in July-November 1916.The setting is significant, since
the memorial is visible from far around.
The Visitor Centre, opening in 2004, explains what happened
here, and the significance of the memorial.
At Pozières, the memorial to the Missing of the
Fifth Army bears the names of over 14,500 men of the Fifth
Army who died in the Battles of the Somme up to 5th April
1918 and all other casualties up to 7th August 1918 with
no known graves.
Villers-Bretonneux is the site of the Australian National
War Memorial on which nearly 10,800 Australian soldiers
who have no known grave are commemorated. It takes the form
of a tower and two broad arms on which are the panels of
names. Most of the names are of men who died on the Somme
in 1916 and 1918. Villers-Bretonneux Cemetery is also the
largest cemetery on the 1918 battlefield, having been extended
after the war. VC Corner at Fromelles has 1,300 names.
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Other
Memorials and surviving traces of the war
Memorials take many forms. Regiments commemorate
their dead, in many cases in the form of monuments
by roadsides or by woodland – the infamous
woods of the Somme which were the setting for
some of the most bitter struggles in the summer
and autumn of 1916: High Wood, Bernafay, Delville
(‘Devil’s), Trones, Mametz and others,
shattered in the fighting but replanted later
in the same form. Not all of this woodland has
been fully cleared, and they should not be entered
except on public paths – ammunition and
shell holes are invisible under later growth
and the ground is still dangerous.
All villages and towns have their war memorials,
bearing the names of local victims of the war,
and the British military cemeteries are a constant
reminder of the loss of life in the Somme. The
contribution of battalions from the British
Empire of the day is recorded in their own memorials,
including the Canadians (Courcelette), Newfoundlanders
(Beaumont Hamel), South Africans (Longueval
and Delville Wood), Australians (Pozières
and Villers-Bretonneux), The 36th (Ulster) Division
(Ulster Tower, overlooking the River Ancre near
Thiepval), a Scottish Highlander figure (51st
(Highlander) Division by the German front line
in Newfoundland Park), the Welsh (a Welsh dragon
memorial staring defiantly at Mametz Wood).
Finding these memorials, of very varying styles
but all of interest, provides a focus for each
stopping point. All these places are easy to
visit, with car-parking space and historical
information.
The war has left many other visible reminders.
The land itself bears scars - trench lines and
mine craters can still be seen, representing
a tiny proportion of the miles of trenches dug
through the farmland. Blurred white marks across
ploughed fields betray the damage done to the
chalk subsoil by trenches, heavy artillery bombardment
or mine explosions. Despite the decades of farming,
the permanent effects of the war years cannot
be eliminated.
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| Memorials to the dead |
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The
considerable suffering endured during the Great War
meant that many villages, even the smallest ones, resolved
to pay tribute to their children who sacrificed their
lives for their homeland. There are today in France
over 36,000 memorials to the dead built between 1920
and 1925.
The department of the Somme also became involved in
this wide-scale expression of recognition and gratitude.
There are 783 communes in the Somme, and almost all
of them have their memorials to the dead. Many of the
memorials were designed by artists such as Albert Roze,
an important local sculptor, who made 23 memorials including
those at Amiens and Longueval.
The state also had a hand in these memorials in the
form of financial grants, rules and regulations to supervise
their building. Furthermore, a "Supervisory Committee
for Commemorative Memorials to the Great War dead”
was also set up.
The design of these monuments is varied; most of them,
for financial reasons, take the shape of an obelisk
with a Croix de Guerre on top, or a funeral urn or a
Gallic cockerel. Some of the memorials denounce the
horrors of war like "Picardie curses war"
in Péronne which takes a vengeful stance. Others
depict the suffering and the sorrow: women or Victory
weep as they cradle a young soldier as at Beaumont Hamel.
Elsewhere women and children poignantly carve the names
of their dead loved ones. At Corbie, the memorial by
Albert Roze depicts a mother who is telling her young
child about his father’s sacrifice by showing
him all the names engraved in stone.
The memorial to the dead is a place where the heavy
toll paid by the Somme during the First World War can
be remembered.
 
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