Armistice Day - Thievpal, Northern France

While staying in Amiens we did a battlefield tour of the Somme which included the Remembrance Day service on 11 November at Thiepval.

The Memorial to the Missing at Thievpal is the largest British war memorial in the world. The memorial records the names of more than 74,000 British and South African soldiers who died on the Western Front in the battles of the Somme and have no known grave.

There is also a small cemetery attached to the memorial. Uniquely this cemetery contains both British and French soldiers - the French burials are on the left and in the photo you can just make out the crosses rather than headstones marking the French graves.

There were about 1200 people who attended the service, most of them British. 

The music was provided by the Hampshire Police Band who apparently come every year. The playing and singing of the British and French national anthems was very moving.

We left a memento on the shrine before the ceremony (a small cross) but some individuals and families laid wreaths during the service. Our cross is just under the photos.

At the end of the ceremony the band and the crowd marched to the little village of Thievpal about 800 metres away to lay a wreath at the town memorial.  

Thievpal was completely destroyed during the war.  On our tour we learned that the French don't commemorate Armistice Day and don't really like remembering the war at all. When you see the devastation and the loss of life and livelihood they experienced, it's not hard to understand why.

POSTSCRIPT

I forgot to mention that we made it onto the local French TV news - in a background shot of the proceedings of the service at Thievpal!