Somerset's Great War

This month marks more than 100 years since the end of World War One, so STEPHEN ROBERTS finds out what it meant to the people of Somerset

- Stephen Roberts

You begin to comprehend the carnage of World War One when you learn how few Thankful Villages there are. These were the fortunate communities that lost no servicemen in the war, when all around them did. Out of some 16,000 villages in England, only 50-odd are ‘thankful’. You could be forgiven for thinking Somerset got off lightly as it has the highest number of any English county (nine). It’s just not so, however, as there are around 750 cities, towns, villages and hamlets in the county. Nine thankful villages represent just over one per cent of Somerset’s communities.

The 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot (Somerset Light Infantry from 1920) was awarded 60 battle honours during World War One, winning one Victoria Cross, but losing 4,760 men over the course of the conflict. The 1st Battalion was engaged from the start, fighting at the Battle of the Marne and the Aisne in 1914, Second Ypres (1915), the Somme (1916), Third Ypres (Passchendaele) in 1917, then various battles in 1918, as the Allies finally pushed the Germans back. The 1st Battalion’s experience of the Great War is a roll-call of the Western Front offensives that scarred this nation’s consciousness for years to come.

Other battalions played their part on the Western Front, including the 6th, 7th and 8th (Service) battalions, the 11th (Territorials) and the 12th (West Somerset Yeomanry) Battalion (Territorials). The 8th took part in Britain’s major offensive of 1915, the Battle of Loos (September-October), suffering such grievous casualties it took the rest of that year to rebuild its strength.