COLLECTIONS | SOMME BATTLEFIELD MUSEUMS
Arnaud Lequeulx profiles two linked collections in France that tell the story of the Battle of the Somme – one of the Great War’s bloodiest campaigns.
For many people, the fighting at the Somme in 1916 typifies the horrors and futility of the ‘war to end all wars’, as it was later somewhat optimistically known. The five-month battle started badly for the British in July 1916, with 57,000 casualties on the first day alone and, by November, just seven miles (12km) of ground had been taken and the hoped-for breakthrough was as far away as ever. The Allies suffered 620,000-plus casualties and the German losses were at least 450,000 either dead or wounded.
After the conflict finished in 1918, the battlefields in the Somme area were visited by the families and friends of the fallen, and have since become places of reflection, with vast cemeteries, the preserved remains of trenches and memorials.
At the heart of France’s remembrance of those who fought at the Somme are two museums created by the Département de la Somme in 1992. Known collectively as the Historial Museum of the Great War (Historial coming from the words history and memorial), the collections are based at…
