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The Thiepval Memorial Walking Tour

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Starting from the Velodrome At this crossroads take the A few metres further on, still on your Take the path to the right to the Next, turn left to the memorial to D 2 th 5 sports ground, set off towards sharpest right turn and, at the left, the churned up field surface 3 Thiepval memorial. the 18 Division, then turn right Albert. top of the slope, take a path to the left. still shows traces of fighting. You will be on the German front line, along the D151 road. At the cross- THE Turn left again when you come to a roads, turn left along the D 73 road. 4 Immediately beyond the The Lonsdale Cemetery was esta- with a fine view over the battlefield : on THIEPVAL MEMORIAL 1 Velodrome café on the left, road further on. blished in 1917 for the dead from the the left is the dark mass of Aveluy Wood On your left, if the fields are ploughed WALKING TOUR take the footbridge which crosses the A little later, on your left, you will find battles at Authuille and Aveluy and ori- from where the British artillery fired on and clear of crops, you can see a white River Ancre. Go through the gardens the Nab. This valley, between Ovillers ginally contained 96 graves. It was the slopes of Thiepval hill, Authuille chalk line which marks the site of an to the tennis courts. Turn left and, at and Thiepval, led to Mouquet Farm extended after the Armistice, and today Wood, Ulster Tower and Connaught old trench. DEPARTURE : the next junction, turn left along the and was used by the soldiers as they it holds a total of 1,515 men. Most are Cemetery with, beyond, the Soon after this, two British cemeteries Albert Authuille path to a road. went up the line. In July 1916 it was British, but four Australians and two Newfoundland Memorial Park above are planted with Irish yew trees : (the Velodrome sports ground) The site known as the “Entre-Deux- almost on the front line and consisted French soldiers are also interred here. Beaumont-Hamel. Pozières and - Connaught Cemetery on your left. of a network of trenches. To the south RETURN : Chemins” contains what are probably Mouquet Farm lie to the right. Established in the autumn of 1916, this the remains of a blockhouse. of the Nab was the “Dead Man’s Bank”, Gradually you approach the great cemetery held only 228 graves at the Albert the site of numerous bloody deaths on (the Velodrome sports ground) memorial of the Somme. By time of the Armistice but it was exten- 1 July 1916. approaching it in this way from the ded later to take in the bodies of men DISTANCE : west you will be following the direction from other cemeteries. Most of the 17 kilometres / 10,5 miles of the British attack. 1,278 men who are buried here now TIME : The Nab. 4 hours 15 3 WAY-MARKING : DON’T MISS ✯ The Town Hall DON’T MISS yellow Albert he vast Town Hall, rebuilt in Neo- Thiepval ✯✯ Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières TFlemish style, is surmounted by a ✯✯✯ The British National Memorial 64-metre high belfry. The richness of he decision to build the basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières stemmed from a its Art Déco interior design (stained n 1932 the British government began to work on Maps IGN n°2407 and 2408 Tlegend. In mediaeval times, a shepherd is said to have found a miraculous sta- glass windows) and its size, which Ithe great Somme Memorial at Thiepval. This © IGN Paris 2001 n°6060.38 6 tue of the Virgin in the fields, which became the destination for pilgrimage. The may seem excessive, are a reminder imposing brick and stone monument, the work of 7 Neo-Byzantine church was built between 1885 and 1895, by the Picard architect of the prosperity of this industrial the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, is 45 metres high 1 cm : 350 metres Edmond Duthoit. Very seriously damaged in the First World War, it was rebuilt bet- town in the inter-war years (machine and visible for many kilometres around. It comme- ween 1927 and 1929 by the architect’s son and grandson. The Virgin and Child at tools and aeronautical engineering). morates the 72,085 missing British and South its top is the work of the architect Albert Roze, a replica created at the time of It was inaugurated by the President African soldiers who fell between July 1915 and reconstruction. The pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de Brebières is still undertaken March 1918, and who have no known graves. Their th of the Republic, Albert Lebrun, today, during the first half of September. The 11 century statue of the miraculous in 1932. names are inscribed on the sixteen columns which Virgin is on display in the apse chapel. In addition, the interior of basilica is richly A large commemorative plaque in form the base of the edifice. The inscription across the top of this triumphal arch LONDRES decorated with frescoes and mosaics. reads : “Aux armées françaises et britanniques, l’Empire britannique reconnais- TUNNEL the entrance foyer of the Town Hall 2 Anvers stresses the significance that the sant” (“To the French and British armies, the grateful British Empire”). Two ceme- Gand teries - one French, one British - at the foot of the memorial, each with Calais BRUXELLES ✯✯ Somme 1916 Museum government wished to lay on the E 300 graves, are a confirmation of the equality and the brotherhood of arms. Boulogne A LITTLE HISTORY… reconstruction of the devasted H Lille his museum lies at the heart of C VERS N Tthe Battles of the Somme (1914- regions. Outside, another plaque was A ALBERT COLOGNE Albert M placed in memory of the 175,000 Abbeville lberts is a town heavy with history and which experienced substantial 1918), in an underground area adap- British soldiers who served in the Amiens ted as an anti-aircraft shelter in Péronne industrial expansion during the nineteenth century. The town boasted “THE THIEPVAL A 1939. It retraces the soldiers’ life in Machine-Gun Corps. MEMORIAL 7,343 inhabitants in 1914…and only 120 by January 1919. Occupied by the Le Havre Beauvais WALKING TOUR” Germans from 29 August until 14 September 1914, then evacuated after the the trenches during the offensive of Rouen ✯ Laon Battle of the Marne, it suffered ceaseless bombardment from the time that July 1916 along this front, which was The Train Station Aéroport Reims held by the British army. The entrance Charles the front line was stabilised along the Ovillers-La Boisselle-Thiepval line. In he station ceiling, entirely reno- De Gaulle to the Somme 1916 Museum lies VERS January 1915 a German shell hit the basilica belfry ; leaving the gilded sta- Tvated, is enhanced with a Potez PARIS STRASBOURG tue of the Virgin hanging horizontally until it finally fell in March 1918. close to the basilica. The 230-metre- 36 aircraft. Henry Potez, a pioneer of Known as “the Leaning Virgin”, it gave birth to a belief among the Allied long gallery is studded with alcoves aeronautical engineering, was a nati- D soldiers that its fall would mean the end of the war. The relief of the French showing realistic scenes of trench ve of Albert. In 1922 he set up an air- army by the British army took place in July 1915. The town then became a life. Eighteen display cases present craft factory of expanding importan- centre of intense military activities, particularly during the Somme offensive various objects and documents, often ce at Méaulte which in 1970 became 1 (staff headquarters, billets, material and munitions depots, hospitals, inces- very moving as well as war material Aérospatiale and then EADS Airbus sant convoys of troops and vehicles going up the line or returning, etc). and weapons of the period. Industrie. He pushed for Albert’s Albert has remained a symbolic town for the British. After its recapture by The gallery opens out into the expansion in the aeronautical indus- the Germans in March 1918, then its liberation by the British in August of delightful public gardens. A museum try. that year, the town was nothing but a vast pile of ruins. shop is located at the end of the Ninety per cent of the town of Albert was destroyed in the First World War. It was visit. rebuilt in Art Déco style during the 1920s and ‘3Os, with the aid of the city of Birmingham. Today, the perspective given by the train station, basilica and the town hall is entirely typical of the architectural style of the reconstruction period. were killed during the summer and A few metres further on, on your right, On reaching Saint-Pierre-Divion, At the next junction, take the Just beyond the cemetery, go autumn of 1916. A memorial set up at the remains of a German fortifi- turn left and then left again. 5 track facing you which runs 6 uphill to the left along a path the time, in honour of the men who fell cation stick out of the ground, As you leave Saint-Pierre-Divion, look along beside Authuille Wood. to the Bois de la Haie. at the Schwaben Redoubt on constructed with retrieved materials up to see, on your right, an electricity A large number of non-natural excava- La Turn right. 28 September 1916, is now in the City (railway track, brick, stone). pole with a helment and a shell tions, shell craters or the 7 of York. You can also enjoy a fine view over the at its top.
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