Somme

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Somme

The Somme coat of arms
Location

Administration
Département number:	80
Région:	Picardie
Préfecture:	Amiens
Sub-Préfectures:	Abbeville Montdidier Péronne
Arrondissements:	4
Cantons:	46
Communes:	783
Conseiller Général:	Daniel Dubois
Statistics
Population	Ranked 40th
-1999	555,551
Population density:	90/km²
Land area¹:	6170 km²

¹ French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km².

Somme is a French département, named after the Somme River, located in the north of France. It is part of the région of Picardie.

Many battles of World War I took place at Somme with a number of monuments to soldiers from various countries. It is now used as a graveyard for the many soldiers killed on the battlefield.

[edit] Battles of Somme

Main article: Battle of the Somme (1916)

In 1916 Somme suffered one of the largest battles that occurred in World War I with more than one million casualties. It is also one of the bloodiest battles in human history. The Allied forces attempted to break through the German lines along a 25-mile (40 km) front north and south of the River Somme in northern France. One purpose of the battle was to draw German forces away from the Battle of Verdun; however, by its end the losses on the Somme had exceeded those at Verdun.

While Verdun would bite deep in the national consciousness of France for generations, the Somme would have the same effect on generations of Britons. The battle is best remembered for its first day, 1 July 1916, on which the British suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead — the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army to this day. As terrible as the battle was for the British Empire troops who suffered there, it naturally affected the other nationalities as well. One German officer famously described it as "the muddy grave of the German field army." By the end of the battle, the British had learnt many lessons in modern warfare while the Germans had suffered irreplaceable losses. British official historian Sir James Edmonds stated, "It is not too much to claim that the foundations of the final victory on the Western Front were laid by the Somme offensive of 1916."

For the first time the home front in Britain was exposed to the horrors of modern war with the release of the propaganda film The Battle of the Somme, which used actual footage from the first days of the battle.

Somme again experienced war in the First and Second Battles of the Somme in 1918.