{"id":2551,"date":"2016-07-17T23:42:03","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T03:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/strathroycaradoclions.ca\/?page_id=2551"},"modified":"2020-05-17T16:52:40","modified_gmt":"2020-05-17T20:52:40","slug":"14-june-24-november-18-1916-battle-somme","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rememberourvets.ca\/index.php\/14-june-24-november-18-1916-battle-somme\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of the Somme &#8211; June 24 \u2013 November 18, 1916"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><strong>Prelude to the Battle of the Somme<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;The Battle of the Somme took place between June and November 1916. But, before the Canadians joined in that ill-fated operation they were engaged in local offensives in the southern part of the Ypres Salient, intended to keep the Germans occupied. At the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.warmuseum.ca\/firstworldwar\/history\/battles-and-fighting\/land-battles\/st-eloi\/\">Battle of St. Eloi<\/a> the 2nd Division received its &#8220;baptism of fire&#8221; in a battlefield of water-filled mine craters and shell holes. The Canadians, wearing the new steel helmets which had just been introduced, suffered 1,373 casualties in thirteen days of confused attacks and counter-attacks over possession of six water-logged craters and the dominating land on which they sat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">For the 3rd Division, the initiation to battle was even more devastating. This time, the Germans mounted an attack to dislodge the Allies from their positions at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.warmuseum.ca\/firstworldwar\/history\/battles-and-fighting\/land-battles\/mount-sorrel\/\">Mount Sorrel<\/a> just south of the Ypres-Menin Road. In the fiercest bombardment yet experienced by Canadian troops, whole sections of the\u00a0trench were obliterated and the defending garrisons devastated. Human bodies and even the trees of Sanctuary Wood were hurled into the air by the explosions. As men were literally blown from their positions, the 3rd Division fought desperately until overwhelmed by enemy infantry. By evening the enemy advance was checked, but the important vantage points of Mount Sorrel and Hills 61 and 62 were lost. A counter-attack by the Canadians the next morning failed; and on June 6, after exploding four mines on the Canadian front, the Germans assaulted again and captured Hooge on the Menin Road.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The newly appointed Commander of the Canadian Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng, was determined to win back Mount Sorrel and Hill 62. He gave orders for a carefully planned attack, well supported by artillery, to be carried out by the 1st Canadian Division under the command of Major-General Currie. Preceded by a vicious bombardment, the Canadian infantry attacked on June 13 at 1:30 a.m. in the darkness, wind and rain. Careful planning paid off, and the heights lost on June 2 were re-taken. The cost was high. At Mount Sorrel, Canadian troops suffered 8,430 casualties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Still, both sides could see only one way to snap the taut chain of trenches\u2014brutal frontal assaults to break the enemy defences; and, indeed, there was little other option. The Allied plan for 1916 was to launch simultaneous offensives on the Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts. In the West, the region of the Somme was chosen for a joint French and British assault about mid-year.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><strong>The Somme<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">But in February the Allied scheme was upset when the German Chief of the General Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, seized the initiative. For his battlefield he chose the fortress-ringed city of Verdun, a position, he correctly believed, so essential to the French that France would fight to the last man to hold it. He hoped to lure French forces into the narrow, dangerous salient, slaughter them with artillery fire, and thus &#8220;bleed France to death.&#8221; He was the first commander to state clearly that the aim of an offensive was attrition\u2014though he did not tell his field Army commander, the Crown Prince, this. On February 21, the German barrage began and for the next ten months, both sides threw soldiers and shells at each other in a nightmare of death. The German Army bled as well. As Verdun was a symbol of life for France, its fall became a moral necessity for the prestige of the German Army. By Christmas, when the battle finally ended, casualties for both sides totalled 680,000, of whom some quarter of a million were killed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">During this holocaust of fighting, the French sent frantic appeals to Sir Douglas Haig, the new British commander, to hasten the Somme offensive and take the pressure off Verdun. With French forces being so thoroughly decimated at Verdun, the British now had to assume a far greater burden of the attack, so what was planned as a French-dominated offensive in terms of manpower became a British dominated one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The campaign was planned well in advance with a massive build-up of men and munitions. By the end of June all was ready for the &#8220;Big Push,&#8221; and Haig was quietly confident that his planned assault would destroy the enemy lines and open the way for the cavalry to ride into open countryside and attack the German rear areas, battery positions, headquarters and communications. Meanwhile, the German Army, long forewarned of the attack, had engaged in a massive restructuring of their defences, most especially in the northern area of the British attack. They were firmly entrenched along the ridges and the villages of the northern Somme countryside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2645\" src=\"https:\/\/rememberourvets.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/22a-Beaumont-Hamel.pdf.png\" alt=\"22a Beaumont Hamel.pdf\" width=\"720\" height=\"935\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rememberourvets.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/22a-Beaumont-Hamel.pdf.png 555w, https:\/\/rememberourvets.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/22a-Beaumont-Hamel.pdf-231x300.png 231w, https:\/\/rememberourvets.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/22a-Beaumont-Hamel.pdf-42x55.png 42w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">On July 1, at 7:30 a.m, at a time dictated by the French to allow their artillery observers clear views, thousands of British and French troops began their advance across No Man&#8217;s Land on a front of over 40 kilometres toward the German positions The result was slaughter\u201457,500 British soldiers killed, wounded or missing in one day\u2014 the heaviest day&#8217;s combat losses ever suffered by the British Army. At the end of the day the French had gained nearly all of their objectives as had the British divisions to the south, but for two-thirds of the British sector, almost nothing at all had been gained.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rememberourvets.ca\/index.php\/battle-beaumont-hamel\/\">On July 1st, 1916<\/a>, at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.veterans.gc.ca\/eng\/remembrance\/history\/first-world-war\/fact_sheets\/beaumont-hamel\">Beaumont-Hamel<\/a>, the 1st Battalion of the Newfoundland Regiment, part of the 29th British Division, lost two-thirds of its entire strength in about an hour&#8217;s exposure to German artillery and machine guns. July 1 in Newfoundland is still a day of commemoration and mourning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.veterans.gc.ca\/eng\/remembrance\/history\/first-world-war\/canada\/Canada8\">Source<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Commander-in-Chief of the B.E.F. from 1915 &#8211; 1918 was Douglas Haig. His tactical decisions have been associated with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men &#8211; about which he appeared to show little remorse. \u00a0His tactics appeared to be based on the premise that the Allies would outlast the Germans in a &#8220;battle of attrition&#8221;; that is, if more and more men were sent over the top to try to overwhelm the enemy by the weight of sheer numbers, the Germans would run out of men before the Allies did.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Plans of attack at this point in the war involved: a preliminary bombardment of artillery to disrupt the enemy in its trenches and to break openings in the barbed wire. \u00a0However, Haig did not have enough heavy artillery to overwhelm the defences, nor did the shells destroy the barbed wire. \u00a0The shells of 1916 burst on impact with the ground, and simply blew up lots of dirt. \u00a0The shells did not explode just above the surface and thus did not break the barbed wire. \u00a0Thus, when the\u00a0troops went &#8220;over the top&#8221; and charged the German trenches, they were stopped by the barbed wire\u00a0and were cut down by German machine gunfire. \u00a0British planners had ignored past evidence that no bombardment, however large, would create the gap in the wire for an assault by infantry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rememberourvets.ca\/index.php\/somme-over-the-top\/\">The infantry was ordered to leave their trenches, to\u00a0advance over the top<\/a>, and charge the enemy trenches. \u00a0They were to advance in carefully regulated rows, shoulder to shoulder, in a mass to overwhelm the enemy. \u00a0Instead, they were cut down by the enemy fire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In the words of the British war artist, Christopher Nevinson, the Somme battlefield was a hellish environment of &#8220;&#8230;shrieks, pus, gangrene, and the disembowelled.&#8221; The smell was indescribable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">[huge_it_slider id=&#8221;5&#8243;]<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">&#8220;Canadians on the Somme<\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Battle of the Somme was not a one-day affair and the fighting continued, notably with a largely successful dawn attack by the British on July 14, through the summer months. In late August 1916, the &#8220;Byng Boys&#8221; moved from the muddy fields of Flanders to the Somme, where they took over a section of the front line west of the village of Courcelette. They ran into heavy fighting and suffered some 2,600 casualties before the full-scale offensive even got underway.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In the major offensive which began at dawn on September 15 the Canadian Corps, on the extreme left of the attack, assaulted on a 2,000-metre sector west of the village of Courcelette. Advancing behind a creeping barrage (a tactic which had recently been introduced by the British, a consequence of adequately trained gunners, more and better guns and more reliable ammunition), the infantry was aided by the &#8220;new engine of war,&#8221; the armoured tank. There were only a few of these and they were extremely unreliable and very vulnerable to artillery fire. However, at this early stage of the war, their sheer presence often threw the enemy into confusion. The attack went well. By 8 a.m., the main objective, a defence bastion known as the Sugar Factory, was taken, and the Canadians pushed ahead to Courcelette. Numerous German counter-attacks were successfully repulsed and by the next day, the position was consolidated. The enemy then brought up reinforcements, the fighting intensified, and gains became microscopic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In the weeks that followed the three Canadian divisions, again and again, attacked a series of German entrenchments. The final Canadian objective was that &#8220;ditch of evil memory,&#8221; Regina Trench. It repeatedly defied capture, and when the first three divisions were relieved in the middle of October, Regina Trench was closer, but still not taken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">When the newly arrived 4th Division took its place in the line it faced an almost unbelievable ordeal of knee-deep mud and violent, tenacious, enemy resistance. However, despite the almost impenetrable curtain of fire, on November 11 the Division captured Regina Trench\u2014to find it reduced to a mere depression in the chalk. A week later, in the final attack of the Somme, the Canadians advanced to Desire Trench\u2014a remarkable feat of courage and endurance. The 4th Division then rejoined the Corps opposite Vimy Ridge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">There were no further advances that year. The autumn rains turned the battlefield into a bog and the offensive staggered to a halt. The line had been moved forward only ten kilometres, though the ground of itself was not particularly important except in terms of morale. The Allies had suffered some 650,000 casualties, and both sides had about 200,000 killed. The Germans refer to the Battle of the Somme as\u00a0<em>das Blutbad\u2014<\/em>the blood bath. One German officer described the Somme as &#8220;the muddy graveyard of the German Army,&#8221; for the British it turned an army of eager, inexperienced recruits into a fighting machine on a par with those of France and Germany, but at a terrible cost in human life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Somme had cost Canada 24,029 casualties, but it was here that the Canadians confirmed their reputation as hard-hitting shock troops. &#8220;The Canadians,&#8221; wrote Lloyd George, &#8220;played a part of such distinction that thenceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the war, they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line they prepared for the worst.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.veterans.gc.ca\/eng\/remembrance\/history\/first-world-war\/canada\/Canada8\">Source<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"wb-cont\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">Regiments at the Battle of the Somme<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Almost every Canadian regiment carries the battle honour &#8220;SOMME, 1916&#8221;, which was a result of the way in which First World War battalions were perpetuated in the post-war Canadian Militia. In addition to the regiments listed below, the Royal Canadian Artillery, Royal Canadian Engineers \u221a, service corps <strong>\u221a<\/strong>, medical corps <strong>\u221a<\/strong> and many other groups saw action in the Somme in 1916. Of the &#8220;named&#8221; armoured and infantry regiments, the list of 57 regiments outlined below officially carry the battle honour. <em>Regiments with <strong>\u221a<\/strong> beside them had Strathroy veterans enlisted in them at one time or another.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">1st\u00a0Hussars<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">8th\u00a0Canadian Hussars (Princess Louise&#8217;s)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The British Columbia Dragoons<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught&#8217;s Own)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Fort Garry Horse<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Governor General&#8217;s Horse Guards<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Halifax Rifles\u00a0<abbr title=\"Royal Canadian Armoured Corps\">(RCAC)<\/abbr><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The King&#8217;s Own Calgary Regiment\u00a0<abbr title=\"Royal Canadian Armoured Corps\">(RCAC)<\/abbr><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Lord Strathcona&#8217;s Horse (Royal Canadians)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Ontario Regiment\u00a0<abbr title=\"Royal Canadian Armoured Corps\">(RCAC)<\/abbr><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Queen&#8217;s York Rangers (1st\u00a0American Regiment)\u00a0<abbr title=\"Royal Canadian Armoured Corps\">(RCAC)<\/abbr><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Canadian Dragoons <strong>\u221a<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Canadian Hussars (Montreal)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Saskatchewan Dragoons<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Sherbrooke Hussars<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The South Alberta Light Horse<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">12th\u00a0Manitoba Dragoons [on the Supplementary Order of Battle]<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">48th\u00a0Highlanders of Canada <strong>\u221a<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise&#8217;s)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Calgary Highlanders<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Canadian Grenadier Guards<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary&#8217;s)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Essex <strong>\u221a<\/strong> and Kent Scottish<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"fr\" style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Governor General&#8217;s Foot Guards<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Lake Superior Scottish Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Lincoln and Welland Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Lorne Scots (Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Loyal Edmonton Regiment (4th\u00a0Battalion, Princess Patricia&#8217;s Canadian Light Infantry)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The North Saskatchewan Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Nova Scotia Highlanders<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Princess Louise Fusiliers<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Princess of Wales&#8217; Own Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Princess Patricia&#8217;s Canadian Light Infantry <strong>\u221a<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Queen&#8217;s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Queen&#8217;s Own Rifles of Canada<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"fr\" style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Le R\u00e9giment de Maisonneuve<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Royal 22e\u00a0R\u00e9giment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Canadian Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (Wentworth Regiment)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Highland Fusiliers of Canada<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal New Brunswick Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Newfoundland Regiment <strong>\u221a<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Regiment of Canada<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Regina Rifles<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Westminster Regiment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Winnipeg Rifles<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada <strong>\u221a<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Toronto Scottish Regiment (Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother&#8217;s Own)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"fr\" style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Les Voltigeurs de Qu\u00e9bec<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Royal Rifles of Canada [on the Supplementary Order of Battle]<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Victoria Rifles of Canada [on the Supplementary Order of Battle]<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Winnipeg Grenadiers [on the Supplementary Order of Battle]<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prelude to the Battle of the Somme &#8220;The Battle of the Somme took place between June and November 1916. But, before the Canadians joined in that ill-fated operation they were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2551","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Battle of the Somme - June 24 \u2013 November 18, 1916<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Prelude to the Battle of the Somme &quot;The Battle of the Somme took place between June and November 1916. 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