Day 5 - The Somme

Click here for today's images.

Left Thionville at 7:00 a.m. and paid the big bucks to use French motorways -- trying to make peace with the GPS. It did cut off 2 hours of travel time to do so.

At Perrone I went through the First World War Museum in the town center. They have some interesting exhibits, including uniforms displayed without mannequins and a collection of war art and propaganda.

After that the GPS and I had our differences yet again. Apparently it doesn't recognize battle sites and grave sites as important locations -- in the Somme, for goodness' sake.

I did manage to take in the British monument at Thiepval; the Ulster Tower -- which commemorates one of the few units to meet its objectives on July 1, 1916 -- only to be cut off from reinforcements and supplies by a German counter-bombardment; the Newfoundlanders' battlefield at Beaumont-Hamel; a few more grave sites; and the Welsh memorial at Mametz Wood -- the latter involving travel down a country lane that thankfully had no traffic coming in the opposite direction.

Beaumont-Hamel was the highlight. Tours are given by Canadian university students and the site has been left as it is since 1919. The land was bought by the women of the then Dominion of Newfoundland as a memorial for their lost men. The Newfs took 86% casualties on the first day of the big push, and according to one contemporary observer, "the attack failed because dead men could advance no farther."

I end today with the image of the Welsh dragon, one of the most recent memorials built at the Somme.