INTRODUCTION

By the summer of 1916 what was to become known as The Great War had been going on for nearly two years. In that time the opposing armies of France, Britain and Germany had dug themselves into a seemingly impregnable line of fortifications that stretched all the way from the English Channel to the Swiss border. Despite horrific slaughter, neither side had been able to achieve its objectives. The Germans had been thwarted in their attempt to overwhelm the French, while the latter had been unable to drive the invaders from their territory. The stalemate had cost thousands of lives. The British had already lost two armies. Its small professional army, the 'Old Contemptibles', had disappeared in 1914 in the retreat from Mons and the effort to stem the German invasion. 1915 had seen the destruction of its Territorial Force in the Battles around Ypres and Loos.

To fill the gaps in the ranks a new army had to be raised. Drawing on the wave of patriotism sweeping Britain and the Empire, Lord Kitchener inaugurated an enormous recruitment drive. Over a million British men answered his call. Town vied with town to raise the greatest number of battalions. These men were promised that those who enlisted together would serve together. Thus were born the 'Pals' battalions, groups of men from a particular town or organisation with a strong loyalty to each other and a desire to serve their country. Coming from the fields and factories, schools and clubs, the men who formed this new army were slowly moulded into a fighting force. They were joined by men from every corner of the Empire. From Canada, Newfoundland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India they came to the aid of the 'Mother Country', the place that many of them still thought of as home. By the summer of 1916 Britain once again had a vast army, albeit an untried one, straining to have a go at the enemy.

And certainly some drastic action was needed. The war was not going well for the Allies. In the far north Russia's armies were being severely mauled by the Germans. At Verdun the German and French armies were engaged in a bloody battle of attrition. In Italy the Austro-Hungarian troops were pressing hard while, in the Middle East, Turkey remained unbeaten. Some action was needed to relieve the pressure on all these fronts, especially the bloodbath of Verdun, and the new British army was the only hope. Giving way to French pressure, General Haig, the British commander, agreed to open a new offensive on the front just north of the River Somme. Initially the British troops were to support a major offensive by the French, but as Verdun drew in more and more of her soldiers France was forced to ask her ally to play an ever greater, and finally leading, part in the forthcoming battle.

An 18 pounder gun position on the Somme during the build up to the 1st of July 1916.

So, after a week's intense shelling, the heaviest barrage up to that time, the British 4th Army attacked on July 1st 1916 over a 15-mile front towards Bapaume with 18 divisions, and the French with 16 divisions advanced towards Péronne. Hit by a hurricane of German fire, undiminished by the long and fierce barrage, the British lost some 60,000 officers and men on the first day, of whom over 21,000 were killed, for a maximum advance of 1,000 yards. In places the gains were much smaller, if any at all. Though the French 6th Army under General Fayolle penetrated von Bülow's lines, it soon became clear to the Allies that a major breakthrough of the German in-depth defences was impossible. They settled for a battle of attrition and for 10 weeks hammered the German lines with smaller, limited attacks, but even the first tank attack in the war, on 15th September, failed to dislodge them. The battle ended on 18th November with an allied advance of seven miles only along a 20-mile front at a cost of 418,000 British and 195,000 French casualties. The Germans lost 650,000 killed or wounded.

Following each unsuccessful assault the armies gathered their dead and wounded. Following its long tradition the British army buried its dead near to where they had fallen. There they rest still. Gathered together in scores of cemeteries, lying near to the men with whom they advanced and tended by the Commonwealth Graves Commission, their rows of white headstones mark the front line from which they advanced and the small gains they made. In many cemeteries they share their quiet rest with their allies, the French, and their enemies, the Germans, united now in the futility of their death.

After the end of the war the names of the fallen were recorded on memorials all over Britain. Not a village, no matter how small, is devoid of its war memorial. Each year on 11th November people still gather to lay down wreaths of poppies and to pay their respects to the fallen of this and other, later, conflicts. Marple gave up 141 of its men to the Great War, no small sacrifice for what was then little more than a village.

Some time ago three local men, Peter Clarke, Andrew Cook and Jon Bintliff, set themselves the task of discovering the story behind each of those 141 names. By 1999 they were able to publish a book, "Remembered – Marple Men who fell in the Great War" in which they tell in words and pictures the harrowing tale of each of our village's missing men. This year Peter and Andrew led a small contingent of mostly local people to visit the old Somme battlefield and to visit the graves or memorials of some of the Marple men who fell there. I count myself privileged to have made up one of that party for, although I am not a native of Marple, I have lived here for thirty years and count it my home. This journal is a record of that trip.

 Ian Rice - April 2002