View of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme 1914–1918 from Mouquet Farm, commemorating the 72,246 British and Empire missing of that sector. It is a monument both to the British Empire and French missing from the Battle of the Somme and other battles in Picardy. © 2013 John M. Shea
"The French did not co-operate in the battle [of Flers-Courcelette], and continued to delay entering the heavy fighting which followed. They took little part until the 25th, when another attack was launched. It was the anniversary of the British reverse at Loos, and Charteris, Haig's intelligence chief, wrote in his diary '. . . a great difference between this year and last'. He was not attempting irony. On 27 September the Thiepval spur was at last taken, having held out since 1 July. A battalion of the Bedfordshires were the ones who finally took possession. The land surrounding this stronghold was carpeted with British corpses from the numerous previous attacks which had failed."
The Thiepval spur is the site of the Thiepval Memorial to the 72,246 British and Empire missing of the Somme. The Battle of Loos was Britain's 'Big Push' in the autumn of 1915, a time when the British had not had the resources — of men, artillery, and aircraft — that they mustered in 1916. British General Douglas Haig had been promoted commander in chief after the failures of 1915. The September 15, 1916 Battle of Flers-Courcelette, an engagement in the Battle of the Somme, saw the first use tanks.
The Big Push, A Portrait of the Battle of the Somme by Brian Gardner, page 130, copyright © 1961 by Brian Gardner, publisher: William Morrow and Company, publication date: 1963
1916-09-27, 1916, September, Battle of the Somme, Somme, Thiepval, Bedfordshires
