Ian Murray marks the centenary of the end of the Battle of the Somme

Flags were lowered, military bands played and dignitaries made sombre speeches to mark the 100th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

They were poignant ceremonies that drew huge coverage in this country and worldwide.

The world recalled the horror and the sacrifice of a battle that has become synonymous with the horror that is mechanised modern warfare.

After the bands fell silent again and the crowds returned to their homes in Britain, France and, yes, Germany, life has continued throughout the summer and autumn of 2016. Yet 100-years-ago life at the Somme was anything but normal. That day in July had been just the start of a four-and-a-half-month long battle that by its climax, 100-years-ago this weekend, had claimed one million casualties.

On November 18, 1916 the whistles signalled the end of the final offensive in the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of the Ancre.

This paper reported in July how the first day of battle had been the worst day in the history of the 1st Hampshire. By nightfall eleven officers and 310 men had been killed or were missing, 15 officers and 250 men were wounded.

It was to take another four months before that day’s objective of Beaumont Hamel was to be taken at the very end of the battle in which the British were to suffer 419,654 casualties for a final advance of six miles. The French were to lose 202,567 and the Germans 465,181 men – more than a million soldiers l Continued on page 26 killed, wounded or missing in what was to be the worst single battle of the First World War.

By the end of the whole battle the Hampshire Regiment had lost 2,280 men killed in action.

After the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November 1916), British attacks on the Somme front were stopped by the weather and military operations by both sides were mostly restricted to survival in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes.

A visitor to the Somme battlefields today, now returned to the fields and small villages that soldiers fighting in the region would easily recognize, can appreciate how terrible the combat would have been. So close are the points of conflict and so near each objective that to have taken so long to capture such a small strip of land clearly identifies the brutality of the fighting.

By the battle’s end the British and French armies had driven the Germans back just 12 miles, far less in some places.

It was to take another four months before that day’s objective of Beaumont Hamel was to be taken at the very end of the battle in which the British were to suffer 419,654 casualties for a final advance of six miles. The French were to lose 202,567 and the Germans 465,181 men – more than a million soldiers killed, wounded or missing in what was to be the worst single battle of the First World War.

The fallen of the Hampshire Regiment, as with the majority of the British dead, rest in graveyards near to where they fell. Those of the 1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment who fell on that first day rest in Redan Ridge No 2 Cemetery. Their comrades who fell in action in the four and a half months of fighting to come lie in in the many well-tended cemeteries scattered throughout the fields.

Today the peaceful fields just to the west of Albert and around Beaumont Hamel are dotted with the small cemeteries of the fallen. The landscape remains very much the same as it did before the battles of the Somme. Only the tidy plots of greenery tended by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and containing the neat rows of uniform pure white Portland rock headstones are testimony to the dreadful scenes of slaughter that took place in that summer 100-years-ago.

A short drive from the battle fields of the Somme lies the quiet small town of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

In fact the town is no longer by the sea, the tide having withdrawn a few miles to redraw the coastline centuries ago.

But it was here that the British Army made its headquarters for much of the First World War.

The British commander in Chief, Field Marshall Douglas Haig established his headquarters in Montreuil-sur-Mer to control the British Commonwealth forces and defend the Somme.

He used the bunkers built in 1845 as his communications centre and the housing for his telegraph wires can still be seen by visitors today.

The first people to use the Theatre of Montreuil were British troops and an English theatre group called the Queerios. This group comprised men dressed in drag and the English tradition going back to Shakespeare of male actors playing female parts.

Douglas Haig’s statue still stands outside the theatre on the Place Charles de Gaulle. It was sculpted by Landowski who sculpted the statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro.

The Germans pulled the statue down in 1940 but the shopkeepers of Montreuil put it on wheels and hid it. The statue, not the original, was re-erected in 1950 after the war and remains to this day.

The military academy providing excellent facilities for GHQ. General Haig was quartered in the nearby Château de Beaurepaire, two miles (3.2 kilometres) SE of the town on the D138. There is a plaque on the château wall to commemorate the event.

During Haig’s time at the Hôtel de France, he is reputed to have chosen the body of the unknown soldier which was transported to England and placed in the cenotaph.

Both George V and Winston Churchill passed through Montreuil during the war to confer with Field Marshall Haig.

Today the charming old walled town of Montreuil is a destination for the British seeking a weekend away, with its beautiful old houses and churches, its imposing ramparts and its cobbled streets - not to mention a good selection of restaurants and hotels.

The first ramparts were built in the 9th Century by the Count of Ponthieu and in the 10th Century Montreuil rose to importance as the main sea port of the Capétiens. Like Arras, Montreuil was famous for its cloth industry from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The eight churches drew pilgrims from far and wide thanks to the relics of saints they held.

Today, as well as its links to the British Army, Montreuil is best known for its associations with the writer Victor Hugo and his great work Les Miserable.

Montreuil is the setting for part of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables,. The protagonist, Jean Valjean (going by the name Father Madeleine), is for a few years the mayor of Montreuil, as well as owner of the local factory, and it is where the character Fantine lives, works, and later becomes a prostitute before dying in a local hospital.

Hugo had spent several vacations in Montreuil and each year in summer the whole town stages a son et lumier Les Miserables pageant.

• An easy way to reach the battlefield sites of Northern France is take the Eurostar to Calais and pick up a a hire car at the station. Eurostar operates up to three return journeys a day between London St Pancras International and Calais Frethun, with journey times from just 1 hour and fares starting at £29 each way. Travellers benefit from seamless city centre to city centre travel, fast and convenient check-in and a generous baggage allowance: Eurostar.com • Stay in the Pas de Calais region: Visit the town of Montreuil where the Hotel hermitage is just a short walk from the British Headquarters: hermitage-montreuil.com • Eat at L’Anecdote restaurant when staying in Montreuil with its stunning twist on 1070’s traditional French cuisine.

• For more information on visiting Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and The Ring of Remembrance and the Pas-de-Calais area: wartimehistory.pas-de-calais.com • For more information on the Pas-De-Calais region: pas-de-calais.com