50 Fun Facts About Battle of the Somme

Which new weapon first went into action with British forces at the Somme in September 1916?

Tanks crawled into battle for the first time on 15 September 1916, with a top speed under 4 mph, and several broke down before they reached the German lines.

Which fantasy author caught trench fever at the Somme in 1916 while serving as a signals officer?

JRR Tolkien fell ill with the louse-borne disease in October 1916 as his battalion attacked Regina Trench. A close school friend had been killed on the battle's first day.

What did Captain Nevill's East Surrey men kick across no man's land on the first day of the Somme?

Footballs bought by Nevill on leave in London gave his men something reassuringly familiar to chase towards the German trenches. He was killed in the attack, aged 21.

Which future dictator, then a dispatch runner, was wounded in the thigh at the Somme in 1916?

Adolf Hitler was hit when a shell burst among his regiment's messengers, and he spent almost two months recovering in a hospital at Beelitz.

The Somme offensive was meant to relieve German pressure on the French army at which fortress city?

Verdun had been under German attack since February 1916, draining so many French divisions that Britain had to take the leading role on the Somme.

The Lochnagar Crater was blasted on the first day of the Somme by what?

A British mine packed with 60,000 lb of ammonal was fired at 7:28 a.m., two minutes before the infantry attacked. The crater is preserved as a memorial.

Released in August 1916 and watched by vast British audiences, 'The Battle of the Somme' was what?

A documentary film shot by two official cameramen at the front, it was shown in eighteen countries and joined UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2005.

Which British commander-in-chief of 1916 was later nicknamed the Butcher of the Somme?

Douglas Haig had led the British Expeditionary Force only since December 1915, and he would have preferred to attack in Flanders rather than on the Somme.

Roughly how many men were killed or wounded on all sides during the 141-day Battle of the Somme?

About 1 million men became casualties out of more than three million who fought, which makes the Somme one of the deadliest battles in human history.

Which poster-famous War Secretary raised the volunteer New Army that attacked on the Somme?

Lord Kitchener never saw his volunteers' great test: he drowned off Orkney in June 1916, less than a month before they attacked, when the ship carrying him to Russia sank.

Which German obstacle did a week of British shelling fail to destroy before the Somme attack?

Barbed wire could only be cut by accurately fused shells, and much of the British shrapnel did not do the job. Attackers in several sectors were stopped in front of intact entanglements.

Where did German soldiers sit out the week-long British bombardment before the Somme attack?

Deep dugouts, 20 to 30 feet underground and big enough for 25 men each, let the defenders climb out and man their machine guns as soon as the shelling stopped.

Which white rock, exposed by digging, made German trenches on the Somme easy for observers to spot?

Chalk from the subsoil lined the trench edges with white on a forward slope, which gave British artillery observers clearly marked lines to aim at.

What finally halted the Battle of the Somme in November 1916, after four and a half months?

Winter weather turned the battlefield into rain, snow, fog and mud, and both armies spent the following weeks simply trying to survive in waterlogged trenches and shell-holes.

The river Somme, which gave the 1916 battle its name, flows past Amiens into which body of water?

The English Channel receives the river at the Bay of the Somme, about 150 miles from its source near Saint-Quentin. The 1916 fighting straddled its upper reaches.

Which word for wearing an enemy down through steady losses sums up what the Somme became?

Attrition was a logical strategy for Britain against a Germany also at war with France and Russia, and September 1916 became the German army's worst month of the battle for casualties.

Which Sebastian Faulks novel follows Stephen Wraysford through the first day on the Somme?

Birdsong pairs its hero with a tunneller who listens for the enemy beneath the trenches, and it was voted Britain's 13th favourite book in the BBC's 2003 Big Read.

About how far had Allied troops advanced, at the deepest point, when the Battle of the Somme ended?

About 6 miles was the deepest advance, on a front of 16 miles, yet it was the Allies' largest territorial gain since the First Battle of the Marne in 1914.

Which dominion's regiment, remembered by a bronze caribou, was nearly wiped out on the Somme's first day?

Newfoundland sent about 800 men forward at Beaumont-Hamel and only 68 answered roll call the next day. George V later granted the regiment the prefix Royal.

To which newly built fortified position did German armies on the Somme fall back in March 1917?

The Hindenburg Line retreat of about 25 miles gave up more French territory than the Allies had won since September 1914, and the Germans destroyed the roads behind them.

Which branch of the army made its only charge of the Battle of the Somme beside High Wood?

Cavalry of India's 20th Deccan Horse rode at German infantry hidden in crops east of the wood, while a British aircraft dived to strafe the defenders.

Which artillery tactic, standard by late 1916, kept shellfire moving just ahead of Somme infantry?

A creeping barrage lifted 50 to 100 yards every few minutes. Too slow and it fell on the attackers' own men; too fast and the defenders had time to man their parapets.

Which forerunner of the RAF took the aerial photographs used to plan the Somme offensive?

The Royal Flying Corps went into the battle with 421 aircraft and had lost 800 by November, along with 252 aircrew killed.

Which Edwin Lutyens arch on the Somme carries the names of more than 72,000 missing soldiers?

The Thiepval Memorial is the largest Commonwealth memorial to the missing in the world, and a name is filled in with cement whenever that soldier's body is found and identified.

Which nation's 38th Division captured Mametz Wood on the Somme, losing about 4,000 men?

Wales is honoured at the wood by a red dragon memorial, put up in 1987, which glares at the trees from the top of a three-metre stone plinth.

Which Irish province named the division that captured the Schwaben Redoubt on the Somme's first day?

Ulster men were the only division of their corps to reach their objectives that morning, though German counter-attacks drove them out of the redoubt after dark.

Which War Secretary of summer 1916 later condemned the Battle of the Somme in his post-war memoirs?

David Lloyd George grew frustrated at the offensive's limited gains while he ran the War Office, and by December 1916 he was prime minister.

Which weapon did William Livens build in giant form and hide in tunnels for the Somme attack?

Flamethrowers 56 feet long and weighing 2.5 tons were assembled underground by carrying parties of 300 men. Four were installed for the attack.

The guns of the Somme's first day could be heard 165 miles away in which London open space?

Hampstead Heath caught the rumble of 250,000 shells fired that day, after a week in which British guns had used more than in the whole first year of the war.

Which French general, Supreme Allied Commander by 1918, directed France's part in the Somme battle?

Ferdinand Foch led the Northern Army Group in 1916, and it was he who accepted Germany's request for an armistice in November 1918.

Which Somme battleground did the South African Brigade capture and hold in its Western Front debut?

Delville Wood cost the brigade 2,536 men before it was relieved, and the shattered ground was later replanted with oak and birch by the South African government.

Which village near the Somme battlefield's highest point fell to the 1st Australian Division?

Pozières cost Australia as many casualties in six weeks as eight months at Gallipoli. Historian Charles Bean called its ridge the place most densely sown with Australian sacrifice.

Which future prime minister lay wounded in a Somme shell hole for hours, reading Aeschylus in Greek?

Harold Macmillan was severely wounded leading an advance platoon in September 1916 and spent over twelve hours in the hole, feigning death whenever Germans passed.

Which serving prime minister lost his eldest son, Raymond, to a bullet at the Somme in 1916?

Herbert Asquith's son was shot in the chest while leading Grenadier Guards near Ginchy, and lit a cigarette so that his men would not see how badly he was hurt.

Which war poet was so badly wounded at High Wood on the Somme that he was officially reported dead?

Robert Graves took a shell fragment through the lung in July 1916 and was listed as having died of wounds. He lived until 1985, reaching the age of 90.

In which town behind the Somme front did a golden Virgin statue hang sideways from its basilica?

Albert's Golden Virgin was knocked nearly horizontal by a shell in January 1915 and stayed that way until more shelling brought the tower down in 1918.

The Battle of the Somme was fought in which historical French province, whose capital was Amiens?

Picardy saw four major battles between 1914 and 1918, and the French remember the German attack of spring 1918 as the Second Battle of Picardy.

Which Lancashire town's battalion lost 585 of about 720 men in half an hour attacking Serre on the Somme?

Accrington raised a full battalion in only ten days, although just one of its four companies was actually made up of men from the town.

Which general led the British Fourth Army, the main attacking force on the Somme's first day?

Henry Rawlinson was also the general who had suggested, back in 1914, that men would enlist more readily if they could serve beside their friends and colleagues.

Which German chief of the General Staff was removed two months into the Battle of the Somme?

Erich von Falkenhayn was sent off to command an army against Romania, which had entered the war just two days before his dismissal.

The final attack of the Battle of the Somme was fought along which of the river's tributaries?

The Ancre attack of 13 to 18 November finally took Beaumont-Hamel, going some way to redeem the failure there on the battle's opening day.

Which German ace built a Somme fighter squadron and picked Manfred von Richthofen for it?

Oswald Boelcke scored 21 victories in two months over the Somme before he was killed in a mid-air collision with his best friend in October 1916.

Which Russian attack of June 1916 pulled German divisions east and away from the Somme front?

The Brusilov Offensive drove some 93 miles to the Carpathian foothills, and the spoiling attack the Germans had planned on the Somme was abandoned on 9 June.

Which satirist, born Hector Hugh Munro, was killed by a sniper in the last days of the Somme?

Saki took his pen name from a cupbearer in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He was sheltering in a shell crater near Beaumont-Hamel when he was shot.

Which town, an Allied objective alongside Péronne, was not captured during the Somme offensive?

Bapaume was not occupied until 17 March 1917, in the days when the Germans were pulling back of their own accord.

The 63rd Division, captors of Beaucourt in the Somme's final attack, was first formed from which men?

Navy reservists and marines who were not needed at sea had been turned into infantry in 1914, and the division fought at Gallipoli before it reached the Somme.

The first day of the Somme fell on the old-calendar anniversary of which 1690 battle in Ireland?

The Boyne was fought on 1 July 1690 by the old Julian calendar, a coincidence remarked on by the leaders of the Irish division attacking near the Schwaben Redoubt.

Roughly how many British soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme?

About 19,000 died and some 38,000 more were wounded, missing or captured, the worst day's losses in the history of the British Army.

Which German writer's war memoir Storm of Steel describes his platoon's ordeal at Guillemont on the Somme?

Ernst Jünger was wounded by shrapnel and sent to hospital just before the British attack that wiped out his platoon. He lived to the age of 102.

Which German painter of the triptych The War served with a machine-gun unit at the Battle of the Somme?

Otto Dix turned his memories into fifty etchings in 1924, and his painting The Trench so shocked one museum that it hid the canvas behind a curtain.