Today, Thiepval is known and revered by many as the location of a memorial dedicated to the soldiers of the British Armies who fought and were never to be seen again while fighting in the Battle of The Somme, and who have no known grave. The memorial, officially called the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of The Somme, is surrounded by an Allied cemetery and is located near the village of Thiepval in France.
It is the largest Commonwealth Memorial to the Missing in the world and recognizes the names of over 72,000 servicemen, fully 90% were lost during the initial offensive from 1 July to 18 November 1916, and the inscription reads: "Here are recorded names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields July 1915 February 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death."
In the wake of the successes of the Canadian and New Zealand troops a few weeks prior at Flers, one hundred years ago, on September 26 the British attacked the formidable German defenses at Thiepval Ridge - it was a battle that lasted four days, and ended with Allied forces controlling most of Thiepval. Supporting the efforts of the Fourth Army, the attack was launched by the Reserve Army under the command of Lt-General Gough, and the Canadian Corps (under the command of Lt-General Julian Byng) provided a critical flank on their right, tasked to capture the German trenches north-west of Courcelette, and their array of machine gun nests.
Augmenting their use of the recently introduced "creeping barrage" British artillery units were directed to concentrate the shells overhead into enemy positions, a suppressing fire, while infantry crossed No Man's Land in the afternoon, intending to reach and take the German trenches under the cover of darkness, another innovative tactic implemented as the war progressed. The British fired over 60,000 field artillery and 45,000 heavy artillery rounds two days prior to beginning the attack on the 26th, in addition to a gas-filled shells to effectively remove the German mortar teams from Thiepval - an objective achieved.
The day before, in a preliminary attack, a Canadian company that had finally successfully captured hotly-contested Mouquet Farm were then driven back by accurately-fired German shells, not to mention the fact the Germans also still held the cellars, dug-outs and tunnels beneath them. During the subsequent Battle of Thiepval Ridge, however, the Lancashire Fusiliers bombed the exits of the underground positions, enabling them to actually reach their second objective: Zollern Trench.
The Germans had held Thiepval Ridge since 1914 and their trench system was vast and complicated. The Canadians, for example, moved from Sudbury Trench to Kenora Trench and Regina/Stuff Trench, but were defending counter-attacks in Hessian Trench by 10:30 at night. To their left, the British - constantly being hit by counter-barrages during their advance - reached Joseph Trench at 12:45 and then Schwaben Trench between Mouquet Farm and Thiepval where they dug in. After numerous counter-attacks by both sides, the Germans withdrew and by mid-morning Thiepval and its ridge were under the command of Commonwealth forces and a victory was declared.
The brutal and bloody fighting continued in the maze of trenches, with grenades being lobbed and hand-to-hand combat facing many of the soldiers over the next few days. German accounts of the battle conclude that the initial successes at Courcelette and Thiepval led to the loss, as well as their lack of reserves which ultimately forced their retreat. With the loss of most of their garrison at Thiepval, the Allies advanced between 1,000–2,000 yards along the 6,000-yard front and continued onward toward the Stuff and Schwaben redoubts, where the Germans were eventually defeated in the Battle of the Ancre Heights, which began on 1 October.
The Canadian 11th Division losses from 26–30 September were 3,615, with nearly 70% of the men wounded, and total casualties in the 18th Division were over 4,000 men, but for the Germans September was considered to be their most costly month of the Battle of the Somme, losing approximately 135,000 soldiers, including 10,000 who were captured from 14–30 September, along with 27 guns, 200 machine-guns and 40 trench mortars.
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