Thiepval

Thiepval

Population 1914:

Population 2004: 100

Location: 

First Attacked: 1st July 1916
Captured: 26th September 1916

Links

Thiepval Centre

Thiepval Memorial

External Links

Thiepval Centre

The Attack on Thiepval 1 July 1916

Sacred Ground: Thiepval

Thiepval Map

History

Thiepval was one of the largest villages on the Somme in 1914, dominated by a large chateau (left) which employed many people on the chateau estate lands. Fighting reached here in September 1914, when the French clashed with the Germans, who took the village and its dominant ridge. They would hold it for the next two years. British troops arrived in the Thiepval sector in the summer of 1915, when the 51st (Highland) Division relieved French territorials in the nearby Thiepval Wood. It was then a 'quiet' sector of the battlefields. The 36th (Ulster) Division moved into the sector in the Spring of 1916, with the 32nd Division alongside them in Thiepval Wood and south of the village. They would remain here until the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. On 1st July 1916 the 36th (Ulster) Division attacked the German positions around the Schwaben Redoubt, and the 32nd Division advanced on Thiepval Ridge and the Leipzig Salient. While the Ulstermen initially did well, capturing the Schwaben by 8.30am, German counter-attacks threw them back with heavy losses. The German 180th Regiment threw the attacks of the Salford Pals and Newcastle Commercials back at Thiepval Ridge, and the HLI battalions and 11th Borders (Lonsdales) were also only able to get a foothold in the Leipzig Salient. Losses on this day were 5,104 in the Ulster Division and 3,949 in the 32nd Division.

Fighting continued, with the 49th (West Riding) Division playing a prominent role over the next few months. On 26th September 1916 General Sir Ivor Maxe's 18th (Eastern) Division took the village following a terrific bombardment and the use of tanks, and tactics developed from experiences in the earlier Somme fighting. Units from the 39th Division got a foothold in the Schwaben Redoubt, and finally took it on 14th October when the 4/5th Black Watch, 1/1st Cambridgeshires and 17th KRRC cleared the Redoubt of Germans.

Today Thiepval is dominated by the Thiepval Memorial, and is now one of the smallest communes in the Department of the Somme. The family that owned the chateau died during WW1 and thus never returned. The Chateau was never rebuilt, and the workers never returned. Nearby CWGC cemeteries include: Connaught Cemetery, Lonsdale Cemetery, and Mill Road Cemetery.