The Somme (Thiepval to Ocean Villas)

“It’s nice countryside. Not flat, more like downland, I think you’d call it. Good fishing in the Ancre – not that I ever caught anything. Open fields with some large woods and copses. Quite heavily farmed for crops and vegetables. A lot of sugar beet, I think. The villages are dull. The railway from Albert stops at Beaucourt. There’s a pretty village called Beaumont Hamel… There’s a problem, though. It is hilly. It depends who has the high ground. You wouldn’t want to attack uphill; that would be suicide.” (Extract from ‘Birdsong’ by Sebastian Faulks)

As he is informed that his unit will be moved to Albert, our Birdsong protagonist Captain Stephen Wraysford recalls his peace-time experience of the area: fishing in the Ancre, lunch in Auchonvillers, “English teas” at Thiepval (which incidentally he never gets). Of course the British were to attack uphill; it was the suicide that we call the Battle of the Somme.

I drive from Amiens to Pozières on a Sunday morning, and as I turn left to meander up to the Thiepval Ridge, I discover that I am not the only one to have this idea today. My little car is in the midst of a swarm of long-distance runners racing to the summit. Up to the majestic Thiepval Memorial, its brick arches standing tall between the trees at the top of the ridge; down the other side to the River Ancre. As I approach Thiepval village from hard-won Mouquet Farm, a niggling feeling about this competitive event brushing up against the sacred past of this hill is soon resolved in acknowledgment that these runners have a deep form of connection to the men who died. This summit is the shared objective of those who run and those who fought. And this is living, this is what they were fighting for.

The road to Thiepval Ridge with the Memorial and village visible from Mouquet Farm (Mucky Farm or Moor Cow Farm as soldiers knew it). The British direction of attack was towards the camera but they had to fight up the hill on the other side of the ridge first. [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

Parking up at the Thiepval Visitor Centre & Museum, a plaque to the Thiepval Chateau catches my eye. I’ve known the name of Thiepval and its Memorial for decades but I’ve never once heard of a chateau. It was destroyed in the war, of course, though the story surrounding its demise is tinged with a touch of irony: a retired army officer purchased Thiepval Chateau in 1912, spent two years renovating it and moved in in 1914… just weeks before the outbreak of the war. He and the villagers evacuated as the Germans moved into this prime high-ground, and the Chateau met its fate.

I am very pleased with the Visitor Centre – lots of detailed maps about the fighting in this sector (as well as an overview of the whole war). From this I can put into context the “Stuff” and “Schwaben” Redoubts that were mentioned in the Diary of the Great War; put simply, they were strong points in the German line at the Thiepval Ridge. In the new Thiepval Museum, I marvel at the meticulous detail of the hand-drawn illustration of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, which stretches 60m around the gallery walls like a modern-day Bayeux Tapestry. (Extracts can be viewed here although the real mastery is in how it all flows together as a single piece.)

And so I approach the Memorial itself. Here I am again, as I was in Ypres and Tyne Cot, standing with the names of thousands of missing men, rising from my feet to high above my head. It is huge – elegant and imposing in equal measure. Its clever positioning makes it visible from many key points on the battlefield and from miles around. And yet I find myself thinking: it is not enough. For the sacrifice of Somme, for the horror of the 19,240 killed on day 1 and the hundred-thousand that followed to the same fate, this magnificent memorial is not enough. There is nothing we can do that will ever be enough.

Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

I continue along the road, down the other side of the ridge towards Hamel (and in the process clarifying for myself that Hamel, Beaumont Hamel and Le Hamel – as mentioned in the Diary of the Great War – are distinct and different places). This is the hill that the British had to climb in attack, with the Germans looking down on them from above.

The Ancre passing through a culvert in Albert [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

I pass across the valley of the Ancre. Yesterday I saw the River Somme for the first time; it felt quite strange to connect with it, a key feature in the topography of the war and a name heavy with the loss of innocence. In Birdsong, in the chaos of the attack, Stephen Wraysford finds himself swept down the River Ancre and this had always puzzled me somewhat, given he was fighting in the Battle of the Somme. Having descended from the Thiepval Ridge into this valley myself today, it all makes sense. The Ancre was as much a feature of this 1916 battle (particularly during October and November) as the Somme, the front line straddling its banks. Thiepval Ridge one side, Hawthorn Ridge the other.

Caribou statue at the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

I pay a brief but rewarding visit to the Ancre British Cemetery with this in mind. Here I read that this burial site was established in May 1917, the first chance the British had to clear the Somme battlefield of the dead. I was shocked. Men had laid abandoned in no man’s land for nearly a year, broken bodies exposed to bombardment and the earth churning around them. Suddenly the vast numbers of ‘missing’ made sense to me and the real horror of the word hit home.

I have one last stop to make on the battlefields of the Somme: Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. This park is beautifully kept by the Canadian administration, with trench systems preserved in the grass, a number of small cemeteries and a caribou statue keeping watch. However, I am here for the Scots. Right at the back of the site stands a kilted soldier, a memorial to the 51st Highland Division, which included members of the Black Watch (my great-grandfather Ferguson Hunter’s regiment). The Division were responsible for taking the village of Beaumont-Hamel in the last big push at the Somme. It feels a strange coincidence that the cemetery next to the statue is called Hunter’s Cemetery.

Hunter’s Cemetery at Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, with the 51st (Highland) Division memorial in the background. [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

My time on the Somme battlefields has come to an end and before my long drive to Reims, I am in need of refreshment. The staff at the Newfoundland Memorial recommend that I go to Auchonvillers, just metres away. I know this place-name from Birdsong. It is where Stephen Wraysford and the Azaires sought their own refreshment during their Ancre fishing trip in 1910:

“[They] took a pony and trap up the hill to the village of Auchonvillers which had been recommended […] as having a passable restaurant… Auchonvillers was a dull village consisting of one principal road and a few tracks and lesser streets behind it, most of them connected to farms or their outbuildings. The restaurant was more accurately a café…” (Extract from ‘Birdsong’ by Sebastian Faulks)

Well, ‘dull’ it may be but I’m pretty excited about getting a drink in a place where my fictional forebears had lunch. I am even more delighted when I pull up at the side of the principal road to a tea room called ‘Ocean Villas’ (the name the British gave to the town in their usual humour). I say tea room quite deliberately because it is immediately obvious that this isn’t your average French café: picnic tables on the neatly cropped lawn, roses climbing the arbor. I walk into the building and two smiling faces say a cheery “Hello!” as if they have known me all my life and have been waiting for me to return. I have found my “English teas at Thiepval” in the home of ex-pat Avril Williams. And she even has a real WWI trench in her back garden.

Ocean Villas Guest House & Tea Rooms, Auchonvillers [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

Up High and Down Low (Kemmel to Arras)

Today is a travelling day, and I’m heading from Ypres and Amiens via a few key places of interest!

1. Kemmel. Or is that Kemmelberg? When I was writing the Diary of the Great War in April and May this year, variations on the placename Kemmel cropped up frequently. What I couldn’t be sure of was whether Kemmel, Kemmel hill and Kemmelberg were the same thing. Before I left the UK, I pledged to seek out this place and clarify the situation in person.

One evening I was chatting to my B&B host in Ypres about the (literal) lay of the land in Flanders and he happened to say, “Have you seen Camel Hill? It is the highest hill in Flanders, but even that is only 150m high.” Translated to Flemish, that’s Kemmelberg! Driving to Kemmelberg today to see what it’s all about, I come to a small village called Kemmel, at its foot. So, there is a hill/berg, and there is a village. Problem solved! Onward to the summit. Sure enough, here is a proper big hill in the Flanders landscape, rising conspicuously out of the level surroundings just like a camel’s hump. It feels high (even though it is only a little taller than Caterpillar Crater was round) and I find this quick glimpse of the view from a hotel car park (the rest of Kemmelberg is heavily wooded):

The view from Kemmelberg [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

What a view the Germans had from up here, and how Ypres must have been at the mercy of their guns! And what a feat to have fought on its steep and forested slopes.

When we arrived on 16 April 1918, Mount Kemmel was a nice spot, still heavily wooded and covered with cheerfully coloured flowers, looking for all the world like Clifton Grove in May. When we left, it was a tortured mass of brown earth, with splintered trees and a poisonous air you could hardly breathe. (A British soldier describes Kemmelberg)

2. Spanbroekmolen. I get a good view of the elevation of Kemmelberg from this place, also known as the Pool of Peace, another of the 19 craters created by the blasting of the Messines Ridge in June 1917. This one has been dedicated as a place of reflection and contemplation, now a lake within a small nature reserve. Just across the road I discovered the small, hidden Lone Tree Cemetery, a few graves in the corner of a farm.

Kemmelberg rising from the flat farmland of Flanders [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

3. Béthune. I’ll be driving an indirect route around France to tick off some key Diary of the Great War locations (to prove to myself they exist in real life) and though I don’t stop for long, Béthune is one of them!

4. Vimy Ridge. An unplanned stop (because I’ve visited this place in the past) but popping into the Vimy Ridge visitor centre I realise that today I am effectively tracing the front of the Battle of Arras which took place in April-May 1917 (before the Battle of Messines and Passchendaele). Vimy Ridge is the site of one of the first major battles of this Arras offensive, beginning on 9th April 1917, another major Allied attack (Canadians this time) up a hill towards high ground held by the Germans. Vimy was a success. They took one side of the ridge here thanks to a “creeping” artillery barrage well-coordinated with the infantry advancing behind it.

I take a short walk around the preserved trench system that weaves between grassy shell holes and craters. Vimy Ridge is a key battlefield site – you wouldn’t want to miss the beautiful Canadian national memorial or the chance to visit the Canadian dugout and mining tunnels complete with soldiers’ graffiti carved into the walls.

Craters with buttercups at Vimy Ridge [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]

5. Lichfield Crater. This crater was used as a burial place by the Canadians for their fallen comrades after the attack on Vimy Ridge. Near to the crater I spot a rusty WWI shell lying at the field-edge, recently unearthed after 100 years underground, unexploded. Back in the car, I am excited to see road signs in this area for places like Souchez which was mentioned in the Diary a huge amount in the summer of 1915, and Neuville-St-Vaast, location of the German underground ‘fortress’ known as the Labyrinth.

6. La Targette Cemetery. Here, vast British and French war cemeteries lie side by side.

7. Arras. I’ve no time to visit the city itself by the time I arrive as my main objective is Wellington Quarry. I get there at about 4:30pm and am the only person to sign up for the next tour – lucky me! Arras remained in Allied hands throughout the war (except for one day in 1914) though the German lines were nearby. Wearing our British Army tin helmets for “health and safety” (and the authentic war tourist experience), my tour guide and I descend into the man-made cave. New Zealand tunnellers began digging in March 1916 to connect this and other quarries and cellars  discovered by the British beneath Arras. They created a huge, secret “dug-out” that accommodated more than 24,000 soldiers and sheltered them from German shelling (and in WWII, sheltered civilians from air raids). Perhaps our own ‘labyrinth’.

This quarry was situated on the outskirts of Arras near to the German lines and in April 1917, troops were gathered in its tunnels ready to deliver an attack. After eight long days of waiting, on 9th April 1917 (in coordination with the attack on Vimy Ridge) they were unleashed on the unsuspecting Germans, emerging from their underground cavern straight onto the front line. The Germans were taken completely by surprise, and the battle was a great success for the Allies. It had only been intended as a diversionary tactic from the “real” attack to be delivered by the French at the Chemin des Dames in Artois.

La Targette French and British cemeteries, near Arras [Copyright 2018: A. Matthews]