Pozières Memorial

Pozières ([pɔz.jɛːʁ]; Picard: Pozière) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

The Capture of Ovillers (1–16 July 1916) was a British local operation during the Battle of Albert, the name given by the British to the first two weeks of the Battle of the Somme. The village of Ovillers-la-Boisselle (commonly shortened to Ovillers) forms part of the small commune of Ovillers-la-Boisselle, about 22 mi (35 km) north-east of Amiens in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France. By 1916, the village was called Ovillers by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to avoid confusion with La Boisselle south of the road. To the south-west of Ovillers lies La Boisselle. On 1 July 1916, the first day on the Somme, Ovillers was attacked by the 8th Division, part of the III Corps. The attack was a disaster and the division lost 5,121 casualties, the defending Infantry Regiment 180 had 280 casualties and Reserve Infantry Regiment 110 35 casualties. The 8th Division was withdrawn and replaced by the 12th (Eastern) Division, which resumed the attack on Ovillers on 3 July and lost 4,721 men by the time it was relieved. Attacks by the 25th Division continued and the village was captured during the evening of 16 July.

Ovillers-la-Boisselle is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

McCrae's Battalion Great War Memorial is a World War I memorial cairn located in the village of Contalmaison, France. Designed by the historian, Jack Alexander, it was unveiled in 2004 after being first proposed by survivors of the battalion in 1919. As such, it is the last of the 'original' Great War memorials to be built. It commemorates the dead of the 16th Royal Scots volunteer battalion formed by Sir George McCrae, known as 'The Sporting Battalion', who participated in the First Battle of the Somme, July 1916. The battalion was notable for its high number of professional sportsmen and fans drawn from the football clubs Heart of Midlothian FC, Hibernian FC, Raith Rovers FC, Falkirk FC and Dunfermline FC and a variety of other sporting clubs. Visiting the Contalmaison Cairn has become something of a pilgrimage - particularly for football supporters and school groups.

Contalmaison (French pronunciation: [kɔ̃talmɛzɔ̃]) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

The first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, was the beginning of the Battle of Albert (1–13 July), the name given by the British to the first two weeks of the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme (1 July–18 November) in the First World War. Nine corps of the French Sixth Army and the British Fourth and Third armies attacked the German 2nd Army (General Fritz von Below) from Foucaucourt south of the Somme, northwards across the Somme and the Ancre to Serre and at Gommecourt, 2 mi (3.2 km) beyond, in the Third Army area. The objective of the attack was to capture the German first and second defensive positions from Serre south to the Albert–Bapaume road and the first position from the road south to Foucaucourt. The German defence south of the road mostly collapsed and the French had "complete success" on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from Maricourt on the army boundary with the French northwards. XIII Corps took Montauban and reached all its objectives, XV Corps captured Mametz and isolated Fricourt. The III Corps attack on both sides of the Albert–Bapaume road was a disaster, making only a short advance south of La Boisselle, where the 34th Division suffered the most casualties of any Allied division on 1 July. Further north, X Corps captured part of the Leipzig Redoubt (an earthwork fortification), failed opposite Thiepval and had a great but temporary success on the left flank, where the German front line was overrun and Schwaben and Stuff redoubts captured by the 36th (Ulster) Division. German counter-attacks during the afternoon recaptured most of the lost ground north of the Albert–Bapaume road and more British attacks against Thiepval were costly failures. On the north bank of the Ancre, the attack of VIII Corps was a disaster, with large numbers of British troops being shot down in no man's land. The VII Corps diversion at Gommecourt was also costly, with only a partial and temporary advance south of the village. The German defeats, from Foucaucourt to the Albert–Bapaume road, left the German defence on the south bank incapable of resisting another attack; a substantial German retreat began from the Flaucourt plateau to the west bank of the Somme close to Péronne. North of the Somme in the British area, Fricourt was abandoned by the Germans overnight. Several truces were observed to recover wounded from no man's land on the British front; the Third Army diversion at Gommecourt cost 6,758 casualties against 1,212 German and the combined casualty count with the Fourth Army reached 57,470, (19,240 of which had been fatal). The French Sixth Army suffered 1,590 casualties and the German 2nd Army suffered 10,000–12,000 casualties. Orders were issued to the Anglo-French armies to continue the offensive on 2 July; a German counter-attack on the north bank of the Somme by the 12th Division, intended for the night of 1/2 July, took until dawn on 2 July to begin and was destroyed by the French and British troops opposite. Since 1 July 1916, the British casualties on the First Day and the "meagre gains" have been a source of grief and controversy in Britain.

The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme; German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history. The French and British had committed themselves to an offensive on the Somme during the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers in 1916 by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. Initial plans called for the French army to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). When the Imperial German Army began the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse on 21 February 1916, French commanders diverted many of the divisions intended for the Somme and the "supporting" attack by the British became the principal effort. The British troops on the Somme comprised a mixture of the remains of the pre-war army, the Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army, a force of wartime volunteers. On the first day on the Somme (1 July) the German 2nd Army suffered a serious defeat opposite the French Sixth Army, from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of the Somme to Maricourt on the north bank and by the Fourth Army from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert–Bapaume road. The 57,470 casualties suffered by the British, including 19,240 killed, were the worst in the history of the British Army. Most of the British casualties were suffered on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt to the north, which was the area where the principal German defensive effort (Schwerpunkt) was made. The battle became notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank in September but these were a product of new technology and proved unreliable. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 6 mi (10 km) into German-occupied territory along the majority of the front, their largest territorial gain since the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. The operational objectives of the Anglo-French armies were unfulfilled, as they failed to capture Péronne and Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals to reserve lines in February before the strategic retreat by about 25 mi (40 km) in Operation Alberich to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) in March 1917. Debate continues over the necessity, significance, and effect of the battle.

L'îlot de La Boisselle (French: ilôt meaning "small island") is a small, 3.12-hectare (7.7-acre) historic site in the commune of Ovillers-la-Boisselle in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France. L'îlot was heavily fought over during the First World War, when it was known as Granathof (German: "shell farm") to the Germans and as Glory Hole to British soldiers. The site is private property and opens to the public by appointment with Claudie Llewellyn (who lives in Montauban-de-Picardie: 06 11 30 76 35).

Fricourt German war cemetery is near the village of Fricourt, near Albert, in the French département of the Somme. Most of the fallen were members of the Imperial German 2nd Army. Of the 17,000 burials, about 1,000 died in the autumn of 1914 and the ensuing trench warfare; about 10,000 during the Battle of the Somme (July–November 1916); and the final 6,000 in the German spring offensive of 1918 and the ensuing Allied counter-attack, the Hundred Days Offensive.

Thiepval (French pronunciation: [tjɛpval]; Picard: Tièbvo) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Thiepval is located 7 kilometres (4 miles) north of Albert at the crossroads of the D73 and D151 and approximately 32 km (20 mi) northeast of Amiens.

The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave. It is near the village of Thiepval, Picardy in France. A visitors' centre opened in 2004. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Thiepval has been described as "the greatest executed British work of monumental architecture of the twentieth century".

The Capture of Stuff Redoubt (Feste Staufen) was a tactical incident during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The redoubt had been built as part of the fortification of the Somme front by the German 2nd Army (General der Infanterie Fritz von Below) after the open warfare of 1914. On 1 July, the First Day on the Somme, troops of the 36th (Ulster) Division occupied part of the redoubt before being forced out by German counter-attacks. British troops were not able to reach the redoubt again until the Battle of Thiepval Ridge (26–28 September) when parties of the 11th (Northern) Division captured part of the redoubt. The rest of the redoubt was taken by the 25th Division during the Battle of the Ancre Heights (1 October – 11 November). Some German officers thought that the blow to German morale was worse than news of the fall of Thiepval. The loss of the redoubt and the success of an attack by the British II Corps on Stuff Trench, beyond the redoubt, on 21 October exposed the Ancre valley and Grandcourt to ground observation. The army group commander Crown Prince Rupprecht and Erich Ludendorff the deputy Chief of the General Staff of the German army wanted to retire from the salient that had formed from St Pierre Division and Beaumont Hamel but Below preferred to hold on since the remaining positions were strong and on high ground with good observation. The last big attack by the Reserve Army (renamed Fifth Army on 30 October) the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November) against these positions was a great success.