Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, located 9 km north of Albert, in the Somme department of France, pays special tribute to the role of the Newfoundland Regiment in the Battle of the Somme and the heavy losses it suffered. It also commemorates those Newfoundlanders who fell in battle and who have no known grave.

When war broke out in August 1914, Newfoundland was a British Dominion and not yet part of Canada. Newfoundlanders responded with a great outpouring of patriotism, with many rushing to enlist. From a total population of about 242,000, more than 12,000 would serve in uniform.

Around 1,000 men volunteered to form a battalion of the Newfoundland Regiment for service with the British Army. After undergoing training in the UK and a period of acclimatisation in Egypt, the regiment was deployed at Suvla Bay, on the Gallipoli peninsula, with the British 29^th Division. Following the end of the Gallipoli Campaign, the regiment spent a short period recuperating before being transferred to the Western Front in March 1916, in time to participate in the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.

The battle began at 7.30 am on 1^st July 1916, when, following a week-long artillery bombardment that was supposed to pulverise the German defences, thousands of British and French soldiers advanced across No Man’s Land on a front more than 39 km wide. Yet, the German defences had been barely touched, and the advancing troops were cut down by a hail of machine gun and artillery fire. By evening, the British Army had suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 fatalities, for a gain of just 8 km².

The 29^th Division was tasked with assaulting Beaumont-Hamel. The initial attack by the first wave quickly foundered in No Man's Land, and, at 8.45 am, the Newfoundland Regiment received orders to move forward as part of the second wave. The attack began at 9.15 am. By the time it had been called off, 30 minutes later, the Newfoundlanders had been all but wiped out. Of the 780 men who went into action, 233 men were killed, 386 were wounded, and another 91 were reported missing, leaving only 68 men to answer roll call the following day.

Major-General Sir Beauvoir De Lisle, commanding the 29^th Division, later said: “It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further.”

After July 1916, the Beaumont-Hamel front remained relatively quiet while the Battle of the Somme raged on for the next four months. The town was finally captured by the 51^st (Highland) Division in November. The Newfoundland Regiment fought on with distinction for the rest of the war, having been rebuilt with fresh recruits. For its valour, it won the right to add the prefix "Royal" to its name in December 1917. By the end of hostilities, more than 6,200 Newfoundlanders had served in the regiment. Over 1,300 lost their lives, with another 2,500 wounded or taken prisoner.

After the war, families and communities across Newfoundland mourned the loss of so many young lives and turned their attention to honouring those who had served. A national war memorial was built in Newfoundland’s capital city, St. John’s, while 1^st July was officially designated as Memorial Day. In addition, five memorial sites were selected in France and Belgium, the largest of which was to be at Beaumont-Hamel.

Lieutenant Colonel Father Thomas Nangle, who had served as padre with the Newfoundland Regiment and was Newfoundland’s representative on the Imperial War Graves Commission, was tasked with supervising the construction of each memorial. At Beaumont-Hamel, he negotiated with French landowners for the purchase of a site of some 300,000 m² over which the Newfoundland Regiment had advanced on 1^st July 1916. The memorial was constructed between 1924 and 1925.

Rudolph Cochius, a native of the Netherlands living in St. John's, was selected as the landscape architect. He incorporated touches from home throughout his design, which include trees native to Newfoundland, such as spruce, dogberry, and juniper. British sculptor Captain Basil Gotto was responsible for the memorial design, featuring a bronze caribou, the emblem of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, which watches over the rolling fields where so many fell. At the base of the memorial, three bronze tablets are inscribed with the names of 821 Newfoundlanders who died during the First World War and have no known grave.

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial was officially inaugurated on 7^th June 1925 by Field Marshal Earl Haig, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force during the Battle of the Somme. The memorial site is the largest battalion memorial on the Western Front, and the largest area of the Somme battlefield to have been preserved. Along with preserved trench lines, it also contains three British military cemeteries, a memorial to the 29^th Division, and another to the 51^st (Highland) Division, which had finally captured Beaumont-Hamel in November 1916.

In 1997, the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial was declared a National Historic Site of Canada, one of only two such sites located outside Canada itself; the other is the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. Veterans Affairs Canada is responsible for administering both sites since Newfoundland's confederation with Canada in 1949. In September 2023, the site was also recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Funerary and memory sites of the First World War (Western Front).