Battle of the Somme
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50 free Battle of the Somme trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Battle of the Somme ran from July to November 1916 and became, for Britain and its empire, the defining memory of the First World War. Its opening morning is remembered as the worst the British Army has ever known, and the months that followed changed how wars were fought. This quiz covers the whole story: why the offensive was launched, what went wrong on the first day, the commanders on both sides, the new weapons and tactics, the villages and woods that were fought over, and the writers, politicians and future leaders who were there. It also looks at how the battle has been remembered since. It suits history students revising the Western Front, family historians tracing a relative who served, and anyone who wants to test what they know about 1916. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which new weapon first went into action with British forces at the Somme in September 1916?
Tanks
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.
Q 02Which fantasy author caught trench fever at the Somme in 1916 while serving as a signals officer?
JRR Tolkien
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.
Q 03What did Captain Nevill's East Surrey men kick across no man's land on the first day of the Somme?
Footballs
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.
Q 04Which future dictator, then a dispatch runner, was wounded in the thigh at the Somme in 1916?
Adolf Hitler
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.
Q 05The Somme offensive was meant to relieve German pressure on the French army at which fortress city?
Verdun
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.
Q 06The Lochnagar Crater was blasted on the first day of the Somme by what?
A British mine
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.
Q 07Released in August 1916 and watched by vast British audiences, 'The Battle of the Somme' was what?
A documentary film
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.
Q 08Which British commander-in-chief of 1916 was later nicknamed the Butcher of the Somme?
Douglas Haig
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.
Q 09Roughly how many men were killed or wounded on all sides during the 141-day Battle of the Somme?
About 1 million
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.
Q 10Which poster-famous War Secretary raised the volunteer New Army that attacked on the Somme?
Lord Kitchener
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.
Q 11Which German obstacle did a week of British shelling fail to destroy before the Somme attack?
Barbed wire
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.
Q 12Where did German soldiers sit out the week-long British bombardment before the Somme attack?
Deep dugouts
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.
Q 13Which white rock, exposed by digging, made German trenches on the Somme easy for observers to spot?
Chalk
Q 21Which branch of the army made its only charge of the Battle of the Somme beside High Wood?
Cavalry
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.
Q 22Which artillery tactic, standard by late 1916, kept shellfire moving just ahead of Somme infantry?
Creeping barrage
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.
Q 23Which forerunner of the RAF took the aerial photographs used to plan the Somme offensive?
Royal Flying Corps
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.
Q 14What finally halted the Battle of the Somme in November 1916, after four and a half months?
Winter weather
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.
Q 15The river Somme, which gave the 1916 battle its name, flows past Amiens into which body of water?
English Channel
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.
Q 16Which word for wearing an enemy down through steady losses sums up what the Somme became?
Attrition
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.
Q 17Which Sebastian Faulks novel follows Stephen Wraysford through the first day on the Somme?
Birdsong
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.
Q 18About how far had Allied troops advanced, at the deepest point, when the Battle of the Somme ended?
6 miles
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.
Q 19Which dominion's regiment, remembered by a bronze caribou, was nearly wiped out on the Somme's first day?
Newfoundland
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.
Q 20To which newly built fortified position did German armies on the Somme fall back in March 1917?
Hindenburg Line
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.
The Royal Flying Corps went into the battle with 421 aircraft and had lost 800 by November, along with 252 aircrew killed.
Q 24Which Edwin Lutyens arch on the Somme carries the names of more than 72,000 missing soldiers?
Thiepval Memorial
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.
Q 25Which nation's 38th Division captured Mametz Wood on the Somme, losing about 4,000 men?
Wales
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.
Q 26Which Irish province named the division that captured the Schwaben Redoubt on the Somme's first day?
Ulster
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.
Q 27Which War Secretary of summer 1916 later condemned the Battle of the Somme in his post-war memoirs?
David Lloyd George
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.
Q 28Which weapon did William Livens build in giant form and hide in tunnels for the Somme attack?
Flamethrowers
Flamethrowers 56 feet long and weighing 2.5 tons were assembled underground by carrying parties of 300 men. Four were installed for the attack.
Q 29The guns of the Somme's first day could be heard 165 miles away in which London open space?
Hampstead Heath
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.
Q 30Which French general, Supreme Allied Commander by 1918, directed France's part in the Somme battle?
Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch led the Northern Army Group in 1916, and it was he who accepted Germany's request for an armistice in November 1918.