Guillemont: Somme

Guillemont Road and the nearby Trones Wood were among the British objectives of the great assault of July 1, 1916. The wood was captured within two weeks, but Guillemont, scarcely a half-mile away, was not reached until September. Michael Stedman tells the story of Guillemont in depth and provides a detailed guide for those who might want to actually visit the site, with a text backed up by numerous maps, sketches and photographs in the familiar Battleground Europe style. The Guillemont Road cemetery contains 2,200 graves, and monuments to the 16th (Irish) Division and other large units are nearby, but Guillemont also provides many examples of personal tragedy. Raymond Asquith, eldest son of Britain's wartime prime minister, was killed here, as were the grandson of Charles Dickens and many other promising young men. Not everyone died, of course, and the Guillemont battle has been particularly well-described from the German side by Ernst Junger, who wrote of his wartime experiences in Storm of Steel, survived the war despite being wounded 14 times, and was still alive and still writing books over 80 years later.