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Battle of the Somme centenary commemorations – live
Battle of the Somme centenary commemorations – live
(35 minutes later)
11.36am BST
11:36
This was the reading by Sol Campbell.
Reading by Sol Campbell about former Clapton Orient (now Leyton O) player Willie Jonas #Somme100 pic.twitter.com/yCr8rexA5y
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Rachel Obordo
As letters are being read out at Thiepval (currently actor Jason Isaacs is narrating the proceedings), readers are sending in their own stories.
Harry Norman Snape, born in 1893, was a prisoner of war (POW) after being captured at the battle of Trônes Wood. He wrote many letters during his time at the front until his capture on 10 July 1916. One of them dated 20 June refers to “The Day”, which was to become the first day of the battle of the Somme:
We are training for ‘The Day’. We are only here for a day or two and then back. I can’t say when it’ll come off but when it does I think that we all shall be ready. Honestly, kid, I am going to try and do something. Nothing rash of course but I’m going to have a good try for honours. There are three of us here pals together, Clem Nixon, a chap we call ‘Ginger’ (H Rogers) & myself. The aforesaid Ginger is in for a Military Medal for attending the wounded under shell fire … This is the last letter I can write for a bit for post is stopped from here after tonight.
Best Love Harry.
Don’t worry. I shall be A1.
Love to all.
A few days later Harry’s battalion assembled in Maricourt, just west of Trônes Wood, as part of a strategic offensive to capture the village of Guillemont. Although they crossed the first 200 yards of no man’s land without incident, they encountered heavy shell fire from the Germans.
The Germans retaliated and Trônes Wood came under heavy bombardment. The allied troops found themselves locked in and were eventually bombed out. All were killed or, as in the case of Harry Snape, captured. Over 200 men were missing after the battle of Trônes Wood.
Due to wounds on his hands and wrist Harry was hospitalised before being transferred to the POW camp in Hammelburg. He continued to write during his time there until his release and subsequent return home.You can share your photos and stories with us via GuardianWitness or by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button at the top of the live blog.
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A century after the Somme, another war now seems less unimaginable, writes Simon Tisdall.
Opinions vary about the origins of the first world war, but there is no doubt that the rise of aggressively chauvinistic nationalism in Britain and across Europe in the latter half of the 19th century, dressed up as respectable flag-waving patriotism, was a key factor.
As Britain and its erstwhile allies and foes commemorate an awful byproduct of that phenomenon on Friday – the 1916 battle of the Somme – the spectre of unthinking, potentially violent nationalism and its ugly sister, hatred of foreigners, is once again stalking Europe.
Read the full piece below.
Related: A century after the Somme, another war now seems less unimaginable
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Here is a picture of Cameron, Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and Hollande arriving.
Hollande-Cameron-PrinceCharles-PrinceWilliam-Kate-Camilla-PrinceHarry... BreKing news ;-) #Thiepval cc @BFMTV pic.twitter.com/TUXhPEfOI3
The new Europe. Francois Hollande not seeing eye-to-eye with David Cameron. Or the royals. #Thiepval #Somme pic.twitter.com/0tHBGlXAfs
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Celebrities including Charles Dance and Sol Campbell are narrating the event. Letters and stories are being read out to the crowd.
I’ll be reading a heart-breaking letter shortly, written by a footballer in the trenches, from The Thiepval Memorial @BBCOne #Somme100
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The Guard of Honour arrives at the #Somme100 commemorations at the Thiepval Memorial in France, ahead of VVIPS. pic.twitter.com/34w8108rHS
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Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s far-right National Front, is at Thiepval.
Je suis présente au mémorial de #Thiepval pour la commémoration de la Bataille de la Somme. #Somme100 pic.twitter.com/wlnKA47yNP
10.53am BST
10.53am BST
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Michael D Higgins, the Irish president has arrived.
Michael D Higgins, the Irish president has arrived.
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David Cameron has also arrived. This will be one of the last commemorative events he attends as prime minister. No doubt Cameron and Hollande have plenty to talk about …
David Cameron has also arrived. This will be one of the last commemorative events he attends as prime minister. No doubt Cameron and Hollande have plenty to talk about …
Angela Merkel is not expected today, but a former president of Germany will attend.
Angela Merkel is not expected today, but a former president of Germany will attend.
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François Hollande has arrived at Thiepval and is meeting part of the British delegation and French armed forces. Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have also arrived. The heads of state will gather and wait until all the principal guests arrive. The national anthems will be played before the heads of state take their place in the crowds, which have been waiting for up to three hours at this point.
François Hollande has arrived at Thiepval and is meeting part of the British delegation and French armed forces. Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have also arrived. The heads of state will gather and wait until all the principal guests arrive. The national anthems will be played before the heads of state take their place in the crowds, which have been waiting for up to three hours at this point.
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At Thiepval, the band of the Welsh Guards have just finished performing and given way to the French military band. You can watch the proceedings live on BBC 1.
At Thiepval, the band of the Welsh Guards have just finished performing and given way to the French military band. You can watch the proceedings live on BBC 1.
Arrivée dans la Somme pour la commémoration de la Bataille. Très impressionnant. @Mission1418 @IWM_Centenary pic.twitter.com/0PPs9cp4wt
Arrivée dans la Somme pour la commémoration de la Bataille. Très impressionnant. @Mission1418 @IWM_Centenary pic.twitter.com/0PPs9cp4wt
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Students have made a life-size paper recreation of the Battle of the Somme.
Students have made a life-size paper recreation of the Battle of the Somme.
In 2014, dozens of students on Birmingham City University’s theatre, performance and event design course worked tirelessly to craft the installation out of paper and cardboard. The items were originally on show to mark the start of first world war, but today the images and time-lapse video of the exhibition are being revisited by students and graduates paying their respects on the Battle’s centenary.
In 2014, dozens of students on Birmingham City University’s theatre, performance and event design course worked tirelessly to craft the installation out of paper and cardboard. The items were originally on show to mark the start of first world war, but today the images and time-lapse video of the exhibition are being revisited by students and graduates paying their respects on the Battle’s centenary.
Each figure, setting and item was made out of brown paper to portray a typical day on the battlefield. It featured trenches, poor outdoor sleeping quarters, injured soldiers and reproductions of the weaponry used during the conflict. It took students four weeks on a budget of only £450 to transform the exhibition space into a recreation of the first world war’s largest battle.
Each figure, setting and item was made out of brown paper to portray a typical day on the battlefield. It featured trenches, poor outdoor sleeping quarters, injured soldiers and reproductions of the weaponry used during the conflict. It took students four weeks on a budget of only £450 to transform the exhibition space into a recreation of the first world war’s largest battle.
After completion, the Royal Air Force, who visited the site, took the full installation to its base at RAF Shawbury.
After completion, the Royal Air Force, who visited the site, took the full installation to its base at RAF Shawbury.
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It’s worth noting that when François Hollande attends the centenary today he will be the first French head of state at a Somme commemoration in more than 80 years.
As the BBC reports, Charles De Gaulle did not attend the 50th anniversary in 1966 and his successors have not been at any subsequent event. The last time a French head of state went to a Somme commemoration was in 1932 when Albert Lebrun helped inaugurate the Thiepval memorial alongside the future King Edward VIII.
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French & British flags on Lutyens's vast memorial to 72,000 UK & S African men whose bodies never found #Somme100 pic.twitter.com/wVXMAO2NpP
This is the famous mud of the Somme valley. 10.000 visitors have been given rain ponchos #Somme100 pic.twitter.com/B6Fe9fmMFO
Diane Freeman @ #somme100 for gt uncle Walter Clapperton, close to tears. His name is on memorial to 72,000 missing pic.twitter.com/W43IJXY5uC
Kelly McKenna, 27, from Luton. At #Somme100 remembering gt-gt uncle who died during Great War, his body never found pic.twitter.com/277rJ4i5i4
Kelly McKenna, 27, from Luton, first became interested in the first world war on a school trip to the battlefields of northern France when she was a teenager. She had not wanted to come at first, she said, but as soon as she saw the monuments, she said they captured her. Why? “It’s the sheer scale of it, of the loss. These men didn’t know what they were going into. They thought they would be home by Christmas,” she said.
She later discovered her own great-great-uncle John Naylor had fought with the Dorset Regiment; he was killed elsewhere in the war and his body never found. Last year, she had a poppy tattooed on her left forearm with the words “Lest we forget”.
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10:25
Rachel Obordo
Readers have sent in some moving stories of soldiers who died 100 years ago today. One wais Pte Charles John Harvey. His great-niece Elizabeth Dean said he was only 19 when he died.
Born in 1897 in Plaistow, Essex, Harvey was in the No 1 section, 64th company, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry). He had three siblings and worked as a barman before he enlisted. Charles was killed during the advance on the village of Fricourt on 1 July. His last letter home had been written four days earlier:
Dear Mother and Dad,
I now take the pleasure of writing to you hoping the letter will find you in the best of health as it leaves me at the time of writing. Also to let you know that I have just got your letter with the birthday cards and I thank you very much for them – they both have very good tokens on them and are very pretty. I will look after them and each time I look at them will remind me of the first birthday I have ever had away from my home. But I am living in great hope that by next June 1917 I will be with you all at home and enjoying myself.
Well I am very pleased to hear that you are getting on a bit better and that Dad is at work again, and I must say that I am getting on with the life well. I think I shall soon be a regular pipe smoker which will be better for my chest as you know I am very short winded and it’s a great trouble to me out here. I would be glad if I could get my wind back again. Well I am quite satisfied with the cards and I won’t forget that home and Mother and Dad are my best friends when I am in trouble again. I think I done wrong when I joined up the second time but all being well, and with God’s help, I will soon be with you all again.
I think this is all I can tell you at the time of writing. So I close this letter with best love to all at home wishing you all the very best prospects of the year.
From your Loving Son,
Charlie
Kisses for Dollie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From her Loving Brother Charlie
Tell Aunt Lizzie that I thank her for the card she sent.
A loving heart but far away but thinks of home every day, though the war may last long I hope to come home well and strong.
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My colleague Esther Addley, who is at Thiepval for today’s commemorations, also reports that Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has arrived, as have Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and the writer Sebastian Faulks.
Jeremy Corbyn has arrived at Thiepval monument for #Somme100. Can also see Nicola Sturgeon, Sebastian Faulks, Seumas Milne on his mobile
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10:19
Esther Addley
Crowds started arriving at the vast Thiepval monument to the Somme’s missing early in the day. About 10,000 people have secured tickets, and many carried artefacts or told stories of granddads, great-granddads, great-uncles and family friends who had fought and, in many cases, died.
Steve Richards, from Brighton, brought a photograph of his great-grandfather Arthur Sillence, of the 11th Battalion the Suffolk Regiment, and also a worn postcard, addressed in pencil to his great-grandmother in Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire.
This card posted home by Steve Richards' gt granddad Arthur Silence on 1Jul. He died the same day, body never found pic.twitter.com/yOZcr7KVjn
Soldiers were not allowed to add any personal details to the pre-printed cards, but the soldier had crossed out everything other than “I am quite well,” and signed it. It was postmarked 1 July 1916. Sillence had been killed at La Boisselle in the early hours of that day. His body was never recovered, and his name is one of the 72,000 of missing soldiers inscribed on Lutyens’ memorial.
“He was just an ordinary man, 38 years old, who worked on the railways,” said Richards. “Signed up, put in uniform, and off he went to war.”
Rear of card sent by Arthur Sillence 1July 'I am quite well'. Died same day La Boisselle, body never found #Somme100 pic.twitter.com/bEY1gvdhVQ
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The CWGC’s casualty database does not list the age of everyone killed on 1 July 1916. Ages were not always provided by the military authorities or next of kin but those that were convey overwhelmingly the youth of most who fell.
The youngest soldier to die was Pte Henry John Edward Woodward, 15, whose mother’s address was listed as West Kensington, London. He served in the 1st/6th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment and is commemorated at the Thiepval memorial. Another of those who died, 54-year-old Lt Col Charles Cecil Archibald Sillery, of the Northumberland Fusiliers, was the commanding officer of the 20th (Tyneside Scottish) Battalion. It lost 311 men, one of the highest losses for a single battalion on the battle’s opening day.
The regiments who lost the most soldiers on 1 July 2016 had large numbers of pals’ battalions in their ranks. These units consisted of groups of young men from the same village, town, street or workplace who enlisted, fought and died together. The army had relied on the camaraderie generated by serving alongside friends, neighbours and colleagues to recruit the huge force it thought necessary to win the war. These young, non-professional volunteer soldiers paid a high price at the Somme.
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My colleagues on the Guardian visuals team have produced charts using records held by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The CWGC’s casualty database lists 17,310 British soldiers who died on 1 July 1916 and are buried or commemorated in France’s Somme department. More soldiers who died that day are buried or commemorated in other countries and French departments – the long-accepted historical figure for British deaths on the first day of the Somme is 19,240.
CWGC data confirms it was the lower orders who bore the brunt of the carnage on the first day. This was an inexperienced army with large numbers of volunteers – many of those who died had signed up earlier in the war and were at the front for the first time after completing their training.
The highest-ranking officer to die that day was Brigadier General Charles Bertie Prowse, 47, from Taunton in Somerset. He fell while commanding the 11th Infantry Brigade but his actions at another battle in 1914 led to a cemetery being named after him in Belgium.
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A programme of film, music and poetry will be used to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of the Somme at Thiepval today. Performers from across the UK, including 600 British, Irish and French school children will take part in the event.
Actors Charles Dance and Joely Richardson will narrate the event and former England international footballer Sol Campbell and actor Jason Isaacs will do a reading. Scottish singer Julie Fowlis will sing An Eala Bhàn (“The White Swan”) in Gaelic.
The Morriston Orpheus choir, the band of the Royal Irish Regiment, British tenor Samuel Boden, and the band of the Welsh Guards will perform songs connected to the battle, including those written by soldiers in the trenches.
The music, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Sakari Oramo, will include George Butterworth’s The Banks of Green Willow, composed while he served with the Durham Light Infantry. Awarded the Military Cross for his leadership in July 1916, he did not live to receive the award and is commemorated on the Thiepval memorial.
To reflect the Anglo-French nature of the event, the chœur de l’armée française will also participate today.
Highlights of the cultural programme include:
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Esther Addley
Sidney Dixon was a 19-year-old draughtsman from Grimsby when he signed up in 1914, part of the first wave of Kitchener’s volunteers. Two years later, he and his fellow members of the 10th battalion The Lincolnshire Regiment – the “Grimsby Chums” – found themselves on the Somme, readying for an attack at the village of La Boisselle.
At 7.28am, two minutes before the scheduled advance, the enormous Lochnagar mine was detonated, supposedly to eliminate the German positions. So vast was that explosion that the hole it blew out in the Flanders soil remains to this day, still 91 metres wide and 21 metres deep.
Critically, however, the mine had been placed short of the enemy lines, and in the two minutes of calm that followed, the German gunners were able to ready their weapons for the British advance. By the time they were able to fall back, half of the 1,000-strong Chums had been killed, injured or were missing.
Dixon was injured but survived, and on 22 July he wrote to his sister and her husband from hospital. “I am now back with the old company – at least, what few there are left, so you see I was not seriously wounded. I think I was about as lucky as any who went over on July 1st. What do you say.”
At least the fact the 10th battallion had been “so cut up” would remind people back in Grimsby there was a war on, he wrote. “I am not sure many knew, last time I was at home.” A week after he sent the letter, Dixon died of his injuries.
Dixon also thanks his sister Gerty for sending a photograph of her baby daughter Eileen (“If people say she is like me, I should say that’ll suit”), and today, Eileen’s sons will attend the commemoration at the Thiepval monument in his memory.
“My brother and I just felt that we should pay our respects to one of our ancestors who laid down his life for the country,” says Roger Dixon, from Harpenden. “We just felt it was something we should do.
“It’s just such a tragedy when you look back to how young these people were. A whole generation was lost.”
Like many in her position, said Dixon, his mother never really talked about her uncle, but for the rest of her life she would save clippings from the local paper about the Chums, along with a handful of cherished artefacts.
Among them, as well as Dixon’s war medal, Roger Dixon and his brother will be bringing with them a tiny 10cm bible that was given by their grandparents to the soldier for Christmas 1914, and which they are certain Sidney Dixon would have been carrying on the day of the attack. “It says: ‘From Gertie and Ernest, to Sidney with Love.’ It’s a little tattered now but it’s still legible on the cover. And it’s got his name, and Grimsby Battalion 134.”
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Timeline of the Battle of Somme
This timeline of the Battle of the Somme by the Imperial War Museum is handy.
