Somme 1916 Museum

The Battle of the Somme may have been a relatively short-lived offensive, lasting only five months from July 1 to November 18, 1916. The resulting carnage, however, claimed the lives of well over 300,000 French, British, and German soldiers. 

The deadly detritus of the world's first industrial-scale slaughter is displayed in this remarkable museum's exhibits: bullets, shell shrapnel, rifles, pistols, mustard gas canisters, grenades, bayonets, and machine guns.

The museum features an extensive collection of wartime attire and accessories, such as helmets and gas masks, uniforms, field glasses, communication equipment, and military insignia of the British and French armies and their German enemy. 

Also on display are many life-size dioramas depicting scenes of everyday life in the trenches, and attempting to convey to the viewer the gritty reality of what it meant to be a soldier fighting in World War I. 

Most haunting and moving of all are the many mundane artifacts that speak to the soldiers' lives and humanity, which were lost in the hellish and apocalyptic carnage of the Somme.

Unopened letters from loved ones back home, a battered tin of peppermint sweets, soap, safety razors, toothpaste, beer bottles, erotica, and an unsmoked packet of cigarettes, whose owners sadly likely died young, speak of the devastating cost of war.