90th ANNIVERSARY SOMME TOUR: WRITERS AND POETS

Bird Battelfield Tours group at the site of the dug-out where Wilfred Owen's suffered 'seventh hell' in 1917

The year 2006 sees the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme (July 1–Nov. 18, 1916). Many commemorative events are planned but we will be beating the crowds by going early. We will focus on the war – and the battle – that the poets BLUNDEN, GRAVES, OWEN and SASSOON experienced, and visiting the places where they fought. Although we will look at the battlefield of July 1, 1916, we will also observe the place by SERRE CEMETERY NO. 2 where – in January 1917 - Owen went through ‘seventh hell’ in a captured dugout in no-man’s land, bombarded by the Germans; and the scene of his death on November 4, 1918, on the Sambre-Oise canal, among other sites unconnected with the Somme battle.

ITINERARY [Cost of tour: £350 incl; £475 for 2 sharing]

Fri. March 3: Ferry Dover/Calais: departs 12.40 arr. 14.55. Drive to ARRAS and the central, if basic HOTEL LES TROIS LUPPARS **. Before dinner visit VIMY RIDGE, and the preserved trenches and great Canadian Monument to Canada’s Fallen. Dinner at La Rapière in the lovely, restored Grande Place.

Sat. March 4: Dep. 9.30 a.m. for brief visit to the ARRAS MEMORIAL and the BRITISH MILITARY CEMETERY on the Faubourg d’Amiens. The Memorial records 35,928 dead with no known graves, who died in the many battles here, including Arras and Vimy Ridge. Among the aviators engraved on the Air Services memorial is the great ace Major M. Mannock VC. Nearby is the sombre place of pilgrimage, the Mur des Fusilés, where French patriots were executed during the last war. 200 plaques record their names and Resistance organisations. A concrete post stands where they were shot.

Thence to ALBERT (and the famous basilica crowned with the golden Virgin holding the infant in her outstretched arms) having passed through POZIÈRES on the Bapaume/Albert road, a vantage point (where a mill stood) which the Australians captured at the end of the Somme battle, at horrific cost.

Devonshire Trench, Somme, grave of the poet W.N. Hodgson, Bird Battlefield Poets' Tour, March 2006

LA BOISELLE and the LOCHNAGER CRATER. This huge mine crater, blown at 7.28 a.m. on July 1, marks the German front line and the spot offers a fine perspective of the July 1 terrain, including SAUSAGE VALLEY, and the infamous SAUSAGE REDOUBT. Here German flame-throwers threw back the Royal Scots’ attack. Failure to capture the redoubt meant the destruction of the Lincolns and Suffolks, caught by machine guns as they skirted around the eastern rim of the crater.

We will then visit places associated with BLUNDEN, GRAVES and SASSOON – MAMETZ WOOD (where Graves went to find a German great coat and ‘bury friends’), QUADRANGLE WOOD (from where Sassoon started his one-man attack on Mametz Wood), BOIS FRANÇAIS (from near where Sassoon watched his 1st Batt. RWF attack FRICOURT and eventually overwhelm the murderous machine-gun position at Wing Corner), BAZENTIN (where Graves was seriously wounded, left for dead, and robbed), KENTISH CAVES (where Blunden sought sanctuary) and THIEPVAL WOOD (near where Blunden’s Sgt. Hoad was killed – the subject of Blunden’s poem Pillbox).

In DEVONSHIRE CEMETERY, near MAMETZ, lies the poet Lieut. William Hodgson MC (‘Help me to die, O Lord’ – last line of Before Action), one of the 9th Devonshires cut down by a machine gun in THE SHRINE in MAMETZ CEMETERY, as they left their trench in MANSELL COPSE. Later that day he and 162 others of his regiment were carried from the battlefield and buried in that same trench, now the cemetery. A wooden plaque was erected – replaced (1986) in stone –

OWEN’s poem The Sentry was prompted by his experience in a dugout by SERRE CEMETERY NO. 2. We will see the spot, recently excavated but now filled in.

Lunch at AUCHONVILLIERS (‘Ocean Villas’) where Avril Williams runs a B&B and provides lunch upon request. A cellar under her rebuilt (1923, all was flattened here) house contains the scrawled comments and signatures of Tommies sheltering 90 years ago; trenches outside are being excavated and restored (they keep falling in).

HIGH WOOD will be visited after lunch, the site of terrible fighting, captured eventually on Sept. 15 (and the subject of PHILIP JOHNSTONE’S bitterly ironic poem High Wood). The bones of 8000 men lie within the wood (now private property). Mine craters are visible from the road. At CRUCIFIX CORNER, a murderous crossroads where German artillery directed their heavies, the eponymous crucifix still stands.

To PERONNE, for night at Hotel St. Claude *** (off the main square and opposite the HISTORIAL) restored inside in naffish style but retaining its 18th century façade. Dinner at Restaurant St. Vincent overlooking the Somme, five minutes walk away.

Sun. March 5: 10 a.m. Hour-long conducted visit to the new, excellent HISTORIAL DE LA GRANDE GUERRE.

To SAVY. ‘For twelve days we lay in holes, where at any moment a shell might put us out,’ wrote Owen of his experience at SAVY WOOD. Owen was asleep in Savy Wood in the ‘shelter’ of a railway embankment when he was blown up. The explosion disinterred his dead friend and brother officer Lt. Gaukroger (he had been killed on April 2). Owen remained there unconscious for several hours, then came to among the horror. ‘I passed most of the following days…in a hole just big enough to lie in with a colleague for company who lay not only near by but in various places around and about.’ Owen’s poem The Show refers:

A break from the trenches. POETS' TOUR, March 2006

In SAVY WOOD CEMETERY lie the remains of Gaukroger; and also of Lieut. Col. A.F.C. Machlachlan CMG DSO & Bar, killed on 22nd March, 1918, while commanding 12th Rifle Brigade at Fluquières. An old Etonian, he was one of four brothers killed while serving with the KRRC or Rifle Brigade – two in India before the Great War, and another on the Western Front in 1917.

MANCHESTER HILL nearby was attacked on the first day of the German Spring Offensive – March 21, 1918, and heroically defended by OWEN’s 2nd Manchesters. A posthumous VC was awarded to their commander Lieut. Col. Wilfrith Elstob, whose last words to his Brigade Commander were: ‘The Manchester Regiment will defend Manchester Hill to the last…Here we fight, and here we die.’

Lunch at LE POT D’ÉTAIN, Holnon, outside ST. QUENTIN.

Thence to the famous RIQUEVAL BRIDGE, captured by a coup de main by Capt. A.H. Charlton and nine men of the North Staffs. on Sept. 29, 1918. The bridge is unchanged. OWEN crossed the canal the same day.

To ORS COMMUNAL CEMETERY where OWEN is buried. The epitaph on Wilfred’s grave was chosen by Susan Owen - Wilfred’s mother- and comes from his poem The End -

It seems a clear statement of Christian belief in the after-life. However, as the complete poem shows, his actual meaning is the exact opposite of this apparent expression of faith. The second line in full is - All death will he annul, all tears assuage? A question not a statement, and the poem’s concluding lines are both anti-war and express disbelief in an after-life. Also buried here are two VCs killed in the same vain attempt to cross the SAMBRE-OISE CANAL. 2nd Lt. James Kirk’s citation states -

Riqueval Bridge outside St. Quentin, March 2006

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty North of Ors on 4th November 1918, whilst attempting to bridge the Oise Canal. To cover the bridging of the canal he took a Lewis gun, and, under intense machine-gun fire, paddled across the canal on a raft, and at a range of ten yards expended all his ammunition. Further ammunition was paddled across to him and he continuously maintained a covering fire for the bridging party from a most exposed position till killed at his gun.

Lt. Col. J.N. Marshall, CO of the 16th Lancashire Fusiliers, was also awarded a posthumous VC. The citation reads -

Lt Col Marshall…went forward and organised parties to repair the bridge. The first party were soon killed or wounded, but by personal example he inspired his command, and volunteers were instantly forthcoming. Under intense fire and with complete disregard of his own safety, he stood on the bank encouraging his men and assisting in the work, and when the bridge was repaired attempted to rush across at the head of his battalion and was killed while so doing.

The place on the Oise Sambre Canal where Owen was killed, Nov. 4 1918. Bird Battlefield Poets' Tour, March 2006. Mrs. Dodie Buchanan

Owen described him as ‘...bold, robust, dashing, unscrupulous, cruel, jovial, immoral, vast-chested, handsome-headed, of free coarse speech…’

Thence to the actual place on the SAMBRE-OISE CANAL, near La Motte Farm on the hill beyond, where Owen was killed, most probably while on a raft giving help and covering fire to his men.

To MAISON FORESTIÈRE, where, in the cellar, Owen wrote his last letter to his mother on October 31, 1918, less than a week before he was killed. It ends –

To the modest, family-run HOTEL LE FLORIDA**, Le Cateau, for dinner and night.

Owen's grave, Ors Communal Cemetery, Bird Battlefield Poets' Tour, March 2006

Mon. March 6: To the battlefield of LE CATEAU (26 August, 1914 - anniversary of Crecy, 1346). On the night of August 25 the BEF, retreating from MONS, staggered into LE CATEAU. Gen. Horace Smith-Dorrien, commanding 2nd Corps, intended to resume the retreat next day, but Gen. Allenby told him that the high ground before the town – essential to hold to cover withdrawal - was lost; and that the retreat should resume immediately, as the Germans would attack in the morning. The men, however, were shattered, the roads were impassable – either flooded by heavy storms or crammed with refugees. S-D decided to disobey his C-in-C’s (French) orders for the withdrawal to continue and stand and fight by the Roman road that runs NW to Cambrai. 5 British divisions and 230 guns faced over twice that number. The nightmare of annihilation or rout was averted – at a cost of 8000 men and 38 precious guns (German losses were similar). S-D had delayed the German advance by half a day. French, who initially praised his stand, was later to vilify him for disobeying orders. Smith-Dorrien was sent home in 1915 (Robertson, CIGS, told him tactfully – ‘ ‘Orace, you’re for ‘ome).

Lunch near Calais. Visit to AUCHON supermarket for wine buying etc.

Ferry Calais/Dover: departs 15.50 arr. 16.05